Both Dhaka and Tokyo expect to elevate the bilateral relations to a ‘strategic partnership’ level during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s upcoming Japan visit. The Bangladesh premier is visiting Tokyo from November 29 to December 1 at the invitation of her Japanese counterpart Fumio Kishida.
Such expectations were made when assistant minister and director general of South-East and South-West Asian affairs of Japan’s foreign ministry ARIMA Yutaka met foreign secretary Masud Bin Momen on Thursday.
Foreign ministry officials said the visiting Japanese minister expected that PM Hasina’s visit in the year of the 50th anniversary of the Bangladesh-Japan friendship would be a milestone in the history of the two countries’ bilateral ties.
Both countries 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 and Rohingya repatriation.
Japanese Ambassador to Bangladesh Ito Naoki and Director General (East Asia and the Pacific) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also joined the audience. Mr Yutaka is on a two-day visit to Dhaka to discuss the preparations of PM Hasina’s visit.
