Bangladesh and Japan expected to elevate bilateral relations to ‘Strategic Partnership’ level during the upcoming visit of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to Japan on 29 November – 1 December 2022 at the invitation of Prime Minister of Japan Fumio Kishida. This was discussed when the Assistant Minister/ Director General of Southeast and Southwest Asian Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan ARIMA Yutaka called on Foreign Secretary Ambassador Masud Bin Momen in Dhaka this morning.
At the meeting, both sides expressed satisfaction at the ever-growing bilateral relations between the two friendly countries, and particularly highlighted the visit of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to Japan in May 2014, when Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and the then Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe elevated the bilateral relations between the countries to ‘Comprehensive Partnership’ level, and also the visit of the then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to Bangladesh in September 2014, when the two countries forged deeper economic partnership under BIG-B. The visiting Japanese Assistant Minister expected that the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s upcoming visit to Japan in the year of the 50th anniversary of Bangladesh-Japan friendship would be a milestone in the history of Bangladesh-Japan bilateral relations.
Both sides expected that during the upcoming visit, Bangladesh and Japan would foster deeper economic partnership in terms of development cooperation, trade and investment, human resources development, agriculture, ICT, education, defence dialogue and exchanges, people-to-people connectivity, repatriation of Rohingyas, etc. The two sides also expressed the desire to enhance cooperation in international fora, including on climate change, UN reforms, disarmament and non-proliferation, etc.
Ambassador of Japan to Bangladesh Ito Naoki and Director General (East Asia and Pacific) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also joined the call on.
The Assistant Minister/ Director General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan is on a two-day visit to Dhaka to discuss the preparations for Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s upcoming visit to Japan.