Foreign Minister Dr. Hassan Mahmud, MP, and his Greek counterpart George Gerapetritis vowed to forge bilateral cooperation in different areas including migration and mobility, trade and investment, shipping, manpower and recruitment, and development of renewable & alternation energy infrastructure during a bilateral meeting held Tuesday (16 April 2024) morning in the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center in Athens on the sidelines of the 9th Our Ocean Conference from 15 to 17 April.
They also expressed satisfaction at the continuous cooperation and excellent bilateral relations between the two nations. The Greek Foreign Minister also cordially accepted the invitation of the Bangladesh Foreign Minister to visit Dhaka and mentioned that the visit could be a good option to inaugurate the Greek Diplomatic Mission there. Earlier in the discussion, he assured the Foreign Minister Dr. Mahmud that opening a Diplomatic Mission in Dhaka is a priority for the Greek government.
Bangladesh’s Foreign Minister requested the Greek Foreign Minister to encourage Greek businesses to import state of art quality Bangladeshi export items and urged him to facilitate the exports from Bangladesh. Greek Foreign Minister agreed on the need to enhance bilateral trade where there remains huge untapped potential and stressed the need to find a suitable strategy to help grow bilateral trade and investment.
Foreign Minister Dr Hassan Mahmud thanked the Greek government for legalizing more than 10,000 Bangladeshi nationals who were living in Greece under the MOU on Migration and Mobility and called for smooth implementation of the second part of the MOU. The Greek Foreign Minister stated that Greece prefers recruiting Bangladeshi professionals for their hard work and law-abiding nature. Greece will recruit a good number of Bangladeshi workers for its agriculture, tourism hospitality, and construction sector in the coming days.
Besides two Ministers also agreed that meaningful cooperation between the two countries in the shipping sector can create a win-win situation as they complement each other and also agreed on building the legal framework for fruitful cooperation in the shipping sector.