Bangladesh yesterday went into an agreement with Canada to boost cooperation in trade and services between the two countries.
Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) and Saskatchewan Trade and Export Partnership (STEP) inked the deal in favour of the respective countries at a programme at the commerce ministry in Dhaka.
Commerce Minister Faruk Khan and Premier of Saskatchewan province of Canada Brad Wall were present during the signing of the agreement, which will facilitate exchange of ideas, and trade and market related information to scale up bilateral trade.
That was one of the six deals signed during a three-day visit of Brad Wall to explore cooperation in trade and investment, agriculture, education and human resources.
"Bangladesh buys a lot of agricultural products from our province. It benefits 18,000 farmers of our province directly and indirectly," said Brad Wall at a press conference at Sonargaon Hotel, explaining the reasons of signing the deals with Bangladesh.
"It is a relationship we value very much. We are very much looking forward to building this relationship," said the Saskatchewan premier who led a 41-member business delegation along with university academics.
During the visit, he met a number of ministers including Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and signed several understanding agreements.
Of the accords, four memoranda of understanding (MoUs) were signed on the education sector.
Public universities of Saskatchewan and Bangladesh inked the deals to conduct joint research on agriculture and agriculture engineering, for academic cooperation in science and engineering, and to exchange faculty and
students.
Representatives of University of Saskatchewan and Dhaka University, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet) and Khulna University signed these agreements.
Under the MoU with Dhaka University, a joint funding of up to 800,000 Canadian dollars will be provided by the Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture and Saskatchewan Pulse Growers.
The premier of the province, which is the world's biggest exporter of peas and lentils, said a joint research would be conducted to improve nutritional quality of lentils.
He said the joint research would benefit the farmers of both the countries.
Bangladesh is the second largest buyer of lentils from Saskatchewan and the exports of pulses to Bangladesh grew by 90 percent annually over the past five years.
Brad Wall said Bangladesh has a trade surplus with Canada and there is an interest among businesses of the province to invest in Bangladesh.
On hiring farm workers from Bangladesh, he said: "We would be very open to see agricultural workers coming from Bangladesh."
News Source: The Daily Star