The Secretary General of Developing Eight Organization for Economic Cooperation (D-8), H.E Ambassador Isiaka Abdulqadir Imam, who is on his maiden visit to Bangladesh, has met with the Hon’ble Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, at the Ganabhaban in Dhaka on Wednesday, 23 February, 2022.

While receiving the Secretary General, Prime Minister Hasina, congratulated Ambassador Imam on assumption of Office as D-8 Secretary General. Prime Minister Hasina hoped that his leadership would add further dynamism in introducing new ideas for innovative partnership among D-8 Member States. Hon’ble Prime Minister Hasina said that the D-8 Member States have the potential of emerging as a powerful economic block, adding that her country being a founding member of D-8 organization would desire further cooperation in the six key priority areas of D-8 namely Trade, Agriculture, Industry, Energy, Transport and Tourism towards enhancing the socio-economic development of Member Countries.

During their meeting, both the Prime Minister and the D-8 Secretary General reiterated the need for materializing the D-8 Preferential Trade Agreement to harness the immense economic potential for promoting trade among the Member States.  She expressed the readiness of her government to make available to Member States exclusive facilities and land in Bangladesh’s ‘Special Economic Zones’ and invited Member States to latch on this opportunity to further enhance economic cooperation.

Sheikh Hasina apprised the visiting Secretary General of the success her country had achieved in the agricultural sector, saying that their researchers have developed the drought and saline–tolerant

variants of rice and that Bangladesh can share its experiences with D-8 countries in the agricultural sector. She added that Bangladesh has also achieved tremendous feat in digital transformation and was prepared to share her experience with the Member States to enhance cooperation in the field of ICT, stating that her government was prepared to provide one of its ICT Parks to the D-8 Organization to enhance cooperation in ICT.

Earlier, Ambassador Imam had briefed the Prime Minister, who is also the current Chair of D-8, on the activities and initiatives of the organization, while highlighting the new projects and initiatives undertaken by D-8. These initiatives include- the D-8 International University at Hamedan, Iran, D-8 Network of Pioneers for Research and Innovation, D-8 Health and Social Protection Prorgamme in Abuja, Nigeria and the D-8 Research Centre for Agriculture and Food Security in Faisalabad, Pakistan. He also briefed on the Visa Agreement and the D-8 Designated Airports initiatives aimed at making traveling easy for business people from the member countries.

The Secretary General expressed his resolve to further promote the visibility of the organization through enhancing project-based cooperation among Member States, so that the benefits of such cooperation would reach the grassroots level.

On the forthcoming silver jubilee celebration of the founding of D-8 Organization, Ambassador Imam used the opportunity to invite the Prime Minister to share a special message during the 25th Anniversary coming up in June this year.

Present during the meeting were Prime Minister’s Ambassador-At-Large H.E. Mohammad Ziauddin, Principal Secretary, Dr. Ahmad Kaikaus and senior official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.