The president and CEO of the World Economic Forum (WEF), Alois Zwinggi, has held a courtesy meeting with the Prime Minister of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, Tarique Rahman. The meeting featured very fruitful discussions on tackling global climate change, expanding the renewable energy sector and international investment in Bangladesh’s sustainable development projects.
The high-level bilateral meeting was held at the Dalian International Conference Centre in China at 5 p.m. local time on Tuesday (June 23).
At the start of the meeting, Alois Zwinggi warmly congratulated Prime Minister Tarique Rahman on taking office as the new head of government of Bangladesh. The prime minister praised the WEF’s various positive initiatives in tackling climate change.
The prime minister called on the WEF to take a coordinated global initiative to help other delta states like Bangladesh and countries at risk from rising sea levels.
At the meeting, the prime minister outlined several of Bangladesh’s mega plans for climate and environmental protection on the international stage. He said Bangladesh had taken up an initiative to plant 250 million (25 crore) trees across the country over the next five years to preserve the environmental balance. Work was under way to re-excavate about 20,000 kilometres of rivers and canals to restore the normal flow of water, reduce flood risk and protect the environment. As part of encouraging renewable energy production, Bangladesh had already provided tax benefits and major incentives for solar power generation, and a master plan had been adopted to produce 20 percent of the country’s total electricity demand from renewable sources by 2030.
Alois Zwinggi expressed deep interest in making use, on a global scale, of Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s experience and initiatives in tackling climate change. ‘Bangladesh’s climate resilience and sustainable development initiatives are highly attractive to international financing institutions and global investors, and will generate great interest among them,’ he said.
Assuring that the points raised by Bangladesh would be considered seriously, he pledged the WEF’s continued cooperation in all necessary areas. At the end of the meeting, Zwinggi formally invited the prime minister to take part in the WEF’s prestigious annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland.
Also present in the Bangladesh delegation with the prime minister were the foreign minister, Dr Khalilur Rahman; the prime minister’s foreign-affairs adviser, Humayun Kabir; the executive chairman of the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA), Ashik Chowdhury; and the prime minister’s additional press secretary, Atiqur Rahman Rumon.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report