Visiting Indonesian leader vows to boost trade with Bangladesh
Visiting Indonesian leader vows to boost trade with Bangladesh
Agencies Dhaka
Indonesian President Megawati Soekarnoputri vowed to boost economic ties with Bangladesh as her visit on Thursday coincided with an opposition strike in the politically volatile country.
Megawati held a 15-minute meeting with Bangladeshi Prime Minister Khaleda Zia at her office after a visit with Dhaka's Indonesian community.
At a banquet Wednesday night hosted by Zia, Megawati called on the two countries to "exert our strength to have broad contacts" at all levels from governments to businesses to people.
"I believe there (is) more room for us to explore if we want to achieve more meaningful and substantive bilateral relations," Megawati said.
Zia called Megawati's trip a "landmark event" and stressed Bangladesh wanted to become a dialog partner in ASEAN, the regional bloc that includes Southeast Asia's economic heavyweights.
She said her country's "unique geographical location makes Bangladesh a natural bridge between South and Southeast Asia."
"Since both Bangladesh and Indonesia are developing countries with similar economic challenges, we need to intensify our efforts through closer political and economic links both at bilateral and regional levels," Zia said.
Indonesia and Bangladesh also share religious ties, being the world's largest and third largest Muslim-majority countries respectively, with both ruled by women.
Megawati's visit to cash-strapped Bangladesh comes as Zia's government pursues a "Look East" policy aimed at forging economic ties with Southeast Asia.
The trade balance between Bangladesh and Indonesia is heavily in Jakarta's favor. In the 2001-2002 fiscal year, Bangladesh's exports to Indonesia stood at US$5.6 million, largely jute and garments, while imports were worth $173.6 million and included mineral products, plastics and machinery.
Thousands of people, particularly women who work in the garment factories, lined the streets earlier Thursday as Megawati's motorcade passed through the Tejgaon industrial area.
Meanwhile, hundreds of students took to the streets of the Bangladesh capital and scuffled with police on Thursday hours ahead of a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, witnesses said.
The students, members of the opposition Awami League, had called a half-day strike over the killing of a colleague which they say was politically motivated.
The strike closed schools and some offices, drove most buses off the highways, shut many shops and disrupted deliveries from the main port of Chittagong.
Powell is to make a brief visit on Thursday afternoon en route from an Asian security meeting in Phnom Penh to the Middle East.
The Bangladesh Chhatra League, student wing of the Awami League, said the dawn-to-noon strike had nothing to do with Powell's visit.
But Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, secretary-general of ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party, said the strike was "an attempt to create lawlessness while Bangladesh is hosting distinguished foreign guests".
Megawati arrived on Wednesday for a three-day visit.
Radical Islamic activists and left-wing students staged protests in Dhaka on Wednesday against Powell whom they accused of killing thousands of Muslims in Afghanistan and the Middle East.
Powell called on Thursday on Bangladesh's long feuding leaders to make peace for the sake of the cash-strapped country in a brief visit coinciding with an opposition strike.
"Bangladesh stands out for its strides made in strengthening democracy over the years," Powell told reporters here.
But he added: "Whatever differences there may be among the political parties and coalition and on the policy matters, the people of Bangladesh need their leaders to pull together to go forward."
Zia and her predecessor Sheikh Hasina Wajed have a bitter, personal rivalry and each while in opposition has tried to scuttle the other's agenda, with general strikes and parliament walkouts frequent tactics.
The two together have ruled Bangladesh since 1991.