PM Calls For Building Strong Partnership Between Asia And Europe

"The more favorable trade regime, the more convenient technical cooperation, the more vibrant people-to-people contact will translate Asia-Europe connectivity into a reality," she said.

"The more the two continents will have interactions and connections; there will be more partnership and ensuring of benefits to all. Let's vow today for (building) such a partnership," she added.

The Prime Minister was addressing the Plenary Session of the 10th Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) Summit-2014 titled "Asia partnership in addressing global matters in an inter-connected world" at Milano Congressi in the Italian city of Milan this evening.

Sheikh Hasina said there is a strong historic link between Asia and Europe based on people-to-people contact, cultural and educational exchange and social interactions and migration. "These are instrumental in building and fostering Asia-Europe connectivity," she said.

The Prime Minister said Asia-Europe connectivity also demands global issues including climate change, migration, terrorism, maritime affairs, disabilities, disaster risk reduction and management, socio-cultural cooperation and human rights.

"If we can forge cooperation on global issues, we can also ensure sustainable and inclusive global growth," she added.

In this connection, Sheikh Hasina noted that European Union is now Bangladesh's largest export destination and said many Asian countries are negotiating with EU for greater trade arrangements. The Prime Minister urged the world leaders to put the issues of poverty alleviation and access to education to the center of the Post-2015 Development Agenda.

"As over 1.3 billion people around the globe still live in utter poverty and huge numbers of children are out of education, the eradication of poverty and access to education should be at the center of the Post-2015 Development Agenda," she said.

"And our experience with MDGs attests that mobilization of adequate resources would be the key to the success of the Post- 2015 Agenda," she said.

For promoting regional connectivity, she said, Bangladesh has undertaken some massive infrastructure and connectivity projects.

"Special economic zones are being developed across the country particularly to allow potential investors to invest in Bangladesh especially in the context of our growing integration into the regional connectivity framework," she said.

Sheikh Hasina said as the Asia Europe Meeting initiated its journey 18 years ago, Bangladesh keenly followed its development and just from the last summit in Vientiane and became a proud member of this august body.

"I have seen high hopes among our people in strengthening Asia-Europe connectivity," she said.

The Prime Minister said Asia-Europe economic interdependence has been growing. With almost two trillion US dollars of Asia-Europe trade, Asia is Europe's main trading partner, she said.

"More than one-fourth of Europe's overseas investment is coming to Asia. It facilitates us to create an enabling environment to further flourish our trade and investment," she added.

While talking about climate change, Sheikh Hasina said Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world where the coast is unprotected to flooding from rising sea levels. "It might force 30 million of our people to move elsewhere as climate migrants," she said.

Despite being a low-income country, she said, Bangladesh has allocated 385 million US dollars from its own resources for adaptation and mitigation of climate change.

"We require adequate additional climate finance; access to locally-adaptable technologies; and support to capacity- and institution-building," she said.

Mentioning that Bangladesh has successfully achieved or on the right track in achieving the targets of MDG-1 to MDG-6, Sheikh Hasina said that the rate of poverty has been reduced to 25 percent from 57 percent in 1991.

"Our government has ensured 100 percent enrollment in the primary schools and maintained gender parity up to the secondary level, while 93 percent of the people have access to safe drinking water and sanitation," she said.

The Prime Minister said Bangladesh has achieved tremendous progress in expanding ICT facilities. "People are receiving more than 200 services from 4,526 union information centers and rural people are getting healthcare services from 13,500 IT- connected community health clinics.

She said her government has a vision to transform Bangladesh into a middle-income country by 2021 and a high-income country by 2041.

"Bangladesh takes pride in its attainments and realizes that this is not the case in many parts of the world mostly because of the huge gap between expectations and the available resources," she said.

-Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS)