Bangladesh has been able to maintain equally robust relationships with the Unites States, China, India, Japan, Russia and the European Union because all these big powers respect Bangladesh’s stance for friendship with all and malice towards none, Ambassador to Washington Mohammad Ziauddin has claimed.
Delivering a lecture on ‘Bangladesh’s policy priorities and its relationship with the United States and the regional powers’ at Keough School of Global Affairs of the University of Notre Dame, Indiana on Monday, he also gave faculty members, scholars and students of the university different perspectives of Bangladesh’s relations with regional powers including China and India, according to a press release forwarded by the Bangladesh Embassy in US yesterday.  As an LDC steeped with multifarious problems, Ziauddin said that Bangladesh has been fortunate to have many friends who enable the country to fight poverty and improve the overall well-being of its people, he added.
The Bangladesh envoy said that Dhaka and Washington consider each other as important partners in democratic governance and integration with global economy. “Bangladesh and the USA have, over four decades, built a strong bilateral relationship based on common values and mutual respect,” he said. The bilateral relations with Washington have been institutionalised by the government while officials of the two countries hold regular dialogues on trade, security and military affairs, said the Ambassador, adding that Bangladesh also participates in President Obama’s four initiatives, especially on health, food security and climate change. Both Bangladesh and the USA condemn mindless violence and extremism in the name of ideology or political expression as ‘both believe violence has no space in democracy’, he said.
 Ziauddin said the US has become Bangladesh’s largest single export destination and the bilateral trade reached US$ 7 billion last year and it is also Bangladesh’s second largest development partner and largest investor. “We’re working on securing ‘Duty Free Quota Free’ access of our goods to the US market as enjoyed by some other LDCs,” he said.
Shedding lights on South Asia, the envoy said that Bangladesh believes cooperation is imperative for optimum utilisation of resources and thus development, peace and stability of the region.
Referencing to the close ties between Bangladesh and India, he said that the two neighbouring countries are interconnected by road, rail, water and air. Both are working closely in counter-terrorism in the region while energy connectivity has recently been added as a new dimension in the bilateral relations, he said. On Dhaka-Beijing relations, the Ambassador said that Chinese President Xi Jinping paid a milestone visit to Bangladesh on October 14 when 27 deals worth $24 billion were signed. The bilateral trade volume was $9 billion in 2014 and China is a major investor in Bangladesh, he mentioned.