The Daily Star

Dhaka

Sat. April 09, 2005

Editorial

A bouquet of accords
Cooperation to partnership envisaged
In a fitting tribute to thirty years of diplomatic relations between Beijing and Dhaka, the summit between Bangladesh prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia and her Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao has yielded as many as nine bilateral accords. Whatever may be the terms used to categorise them -- five agreements, two memoranda of understanding (MoU), a contract and an exchange of letters -- the volume and quality of cooperation envisaged by the accords must be a matter of satisfaction to both sides.

The plethora of agreements should also have no one in doubt that foreign ministers of the respective countries did their homework extremely well, albeit backed by political will on both sides.

What next? Obviously their job is now cut out to translate the accords into actions for cooperation leading up to partnership for development. The attention and emphasis now automatically rivet on having the implementation machinery in place to coordinate and interact within the framework of accords to yield maximum results. Of the accords, the assistance agreements on capacity building for civil service law enforcement, criminal investigation including forensic skill training have a ring of topicality about them. The list goes on: the MoU on installation of digital telephone exchange contract on production and service of Baropukuria Coal Mine, letters of cooperation on water management, MoU on cooperation in agriculture, exchange of letters on direct airlink.

There is also the cooperation agreement on peaceful use of nuclear energy.

Other highlights of the wide ranging understanding reached between the two countries include switch-over from suppliers credit to concessional lending by China. Moreover, premier Jiabao has shown a positive attitude towards Bangladesh's requests for duty-free access of her goods to the Chinese market and Chinese investment on collaboration basis by way of progressively reducing the huge trade deficit Bangladesh has had with China.

Just how much China values her relations with Bangladesh seems borne out by the fact that China is to have a month-long celebrations to make the thirtieth anniversary of her establishing diplomatic ties with Bangladesh. It is the people to people cooperation that both countries are now looking forward to.