Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dr. Hasan Mahmud said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s visit to China this year is not signing any agreement between the two countries, but some projects may be inaugurated along with the signing of 20 MoUs. The minister said Bangladesh-China relations have now ‘elevated to the second stage’, though he did not specify any financial value of the issues to be agreed upon.
The foreign minister said that the visit will be a memorandum of understanding for economic cooperation, on the basis of which there will be cooperation between the two countries in the banking and economic fields in view of the needs of Bangladesh in the future and if all the conditions are met.
Related sources say that there may be an announcement from Beijing about giving a loan of about 500 million dollars against various projects and Bangladesh is insisting on giving this loan in Chinese currency.
The Prime Minister is leaving Dhaka for Beijing on Monday. This is his second foreign visit at the bilateral level after coming back to power through the 2024 elections. Earlier, he visited India last month.
Besides, analysts believe that the political importance of this visit before the completion of fifty years of diplomatic relations between Bangladesh and China is also high.
Sheikh Hasina previously visited China in 2014 and 2019. And Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Dhaka in 2016.
Incidentally, Bangladesh has been receiving assistance from China for the past decade and a half, usually for big projects or during economic crisis, and Bangladesh now considers China to finance most of the big projects.