China is concerned about the ongoing Rakhine crisis and hopes that the issue would be resolved as soon as possible, said the Chinese ambassador to Bangladesh, Ma Mingqiang. “China strongly condemned the violence at Rakhine state in Myanmar on August 25,” said Ma Mingqiang. He said this while replying to a question after the signing of an agreement on two projects at the Economic Relations Division (ERD) at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar yesterday.

“Some insurgents attacked a police post on August 25 and violence spread over Rakhine state, which is not acceptable,” he said. He expressed his hope that the situation would be coped with immediately.

However, he also remarked that the violence that occurred in Rakhine was an internal matter of Myanmar. Nevertheless, China has also been affected by the violence in Rakhine state as there are Chinese investments there, he observed.

He also noted that Bangladesh and Myanmar are stakeholders in the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) economic corridor.

Earlier, ERD secretary Kazi Shafiqul Islam and China’s ambassador Ma Mingqiang signed two financing agreements involving USD 388.08 million on behalf their respective governments as the part of the materialisation of the commitment made by China to Bangladesh during Chinese president Xi Jinping’s visit in October 2016.

During the visit of Xi Jinping in October 2016, the leaders of China and Bangladesh signed 27 agreements aimed at fostering trade and investment along with countering terrorism.

The two projects that will be signed are ‘Development of the ICT infra-network for Bangladesh government Phase-III (info-Sarker-3)’ (USD 156.56 million) and ‘Modernisation of telecommunications network for digital connectivity (MoTN)’ (USD 231.50 million). Under the info-Sarker-III project, after online connectivity up to the upazila level, the government is now planning to expand the ICT facilities to the union parishad, the lowest tier of the local government.

Under this project, the Directorate of Information and Communication will give the union information service centres (UISCs) an institutional shape.

This information was disclosed at a workshop on ‘Development of National ICT Infra- Network for Bangladesh Government (Info Sarkar Phase-3)’, arranged by the directorate at its conference room here.  All the 4,547 UISCs of the country would be made three-pronged, having documentation and outsourcing centres, with the aim to create job opportunities at the grassroots level.