People of both countries will benefit from the cooperation in areas identified during her India visit, said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh.
Briefing media in Dhaka on Wednesday about her 4-day long state visit to India between Sept 5-8, Prime Minister Hasina spoke about the entire gamut of discussion, instruments signed and new areas of cooperation identified during the visit.
She said the visit to India has opened a new horizon in Bangladesh -India relations. Sheikh Hasina said both the countries pledged to continue cooperation on the basis of equality and respect as good neighbours.
Highlighting the energy cooperation between Bangladesh and India, Prime Minister Hasina said that fuel will be imported from the Numaligarh refinery in Siliguri to Parbatipur in Dinajpur district of Bangladesh. The work on the 131 kilometre long ‘India-Bangladesh Friendship Pipeline’ is almost complete with 125 km of the 126.5 kilometre of the pipeline in Bangladesh ready. She said that with the construction of the pipeline the fuel transportation cost will be saved and diesel could be imported easily from India.
Prime Minister Hasina said that currently 60-80 thousand metric tonnes of diesel is imported from India annually but after the completion of the pipeline it will be possible to import 10 lakh metric tonnes of diesel from India. She said that on 28 August India’s state owned company has been enlisted as a supplier of fuel on Government to Government (GtoG) basis to diversify the source of fuel import.
The Prime Minister informed that the government of Bangladesh is considering importing Regasified LNG (RLNG) from India through a cross-border pipeline. In this context Petrobangla signed a non-binding MoU with Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOCL) and H-Energy. India is also cooperating with Bangladesh in the offshore gas exploration in the shallow sea blocks SS-04 and SS-09 with two exploratory wells being drilled in both the blocks (Titli-1 and Maitri-1), said the Prime Minister.
Talking about the agreement on the Kushiyara river water sharing, Prime Minister Hasina said that Bangladesh will receive 153 cusecs of water which will help irrigate 5000 hectares of land through the Rahipur Link canal. Apart from this, agreement has been made on cooperation in the fields of environment, climate change, cyber security, space technology, green economy, cultural and people-to-people communication.
Speaking about the cooperation in the IT sector, Prime Minister Hasina said that some more MoUs are under discussion in the IT sector, which are expected to be finalised soon. If these MoUs are signed, Bangladesh will march forward another step towards achieving ‘Digital Bangladesh’, said the Prime Minister.
