Bangladesh to become “economically more pertinent” to Australia

Staff Reporter
With the newer kind of appreciation of Bangladesh’s value in Australia, Dhaka is now making its all-out efforts to become “economically more pertinent” to Canberra by jointly exploring the vast areas of co-operation keeping the geopolitical imperatives in mind.
“I think there has been a newer kind of appreciation of Bangladesh’s value. And particularly in the last three-four years, we actually started shaking the tree by projecting that Bangladesh is no longer a Bang-ladesh of 2005 or 2010. It’s changing very fast. And we see this is getting reflected at various levels,” Bangladesh High Commissioner to Australia Mohammad Sufiur Rahman said marking the 50th anniver-sary of diplomatic relations between the two countries that falls on January 31.
All these past years, he said, Australia has been supportive and there is no doubt about it. But there was a perception in Australia that Bangladesh is a disaster-prone and aid-dependent country.
“So, we’ve tried our level best to change it by projecting Bangladesh as a self-assured and self-dependent country which is emerging as a middle economic power in this Indian Ocean region,” said the High Commissioner, adding that it has been their focus in the recent period to change that negative narrative.
Highlighting the huge perception change from the Australian side, he said persistent efforts of the Bang-ladesh Mission over the last three-four years to create a new narrative of Bangladesh in Australia have started paying dividends.
Signing of Trade and Investment Framework Arrangement (TIFA), repeated telephone calls from Aus-tralian Foreign Minister to Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen and request from Aus-tralian Prime Minister for meeting Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina during COP26 in Glasgow indicate a significant change in the approach from the Australian side that has all these years seen Bangladesh as a vulnerable country and a recipient of her development assistance, said the diplomat having a three-decade long career.
Founded on bipartisan support, the leadership of Australia quickly recognised Bangladesh on January 31 in 1972, the first among the developed nations that influenced recognition from other countries.
The then Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam visited Dhaka in January 1975 and met Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman giving Bangladesh-Australia relations a strong begin-ning.
“But when we lost our Father of the Nation, I think Bangladesh also lost its path. The momentum in bi-lateral relations that was created during the visit of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam in 1975, the only Australian Prime Minister who visited Bangladesh in the last five decades, couldn’t be sustained,” said the Bangladesh envoy, recalling the role of these two giant political personalities.
In the subsequent period, High Commissioner Sufiur said, they saw Australian support coming in the reconstruction of Bangladesh and in the field of socio-economic development which he thinks was far below the potential.
The envoy who is also Bangladesh High Commissioner to New Zealand and Fiji said things started changing slightly when Australia decided to extend duty free quota free market access to Bangladesh, two decades back as an LDC.
And in the last 10 years or so, he said, Australia’s interest in Bangladesh increased because of Bangla-desh’s capacity to export in a significant quantum to the Australian market and to absorb Australian ex-ports apart from Bangladesh diaspora’s important role in Australian nation building efforts.
Geopolitics and Post-Covid Era
The High Commissioner said the post-Covid era is going to be an “uncertain time” for everybody in the regional context and also in the global context with the emergence of intense strategic competition.
“And that will also have an impact on how we produce, how we consume and how we trade. These all are going to happen at the same time. So, we would expect to see greater focus on sustainable consump-tion,” he said, adding that the production processes will change, sourcing from various countries will also change.
And at the same time, the climate change related global consensus, which will also have an impact on how the countries produce, people consume and trade, said the envoy.
Apart from all these factors, the High Commissioner said, there are newer tensions in the Indo Pacific and between some countries in the region.
“So, this geopolitical tension is also going to have an impact on how Bangladesh and Australia will try to adjust engagement with each other,” he said, noting that Bangladesh is focused on the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean and would like to see peace and stability in this region to keep Bangladesh’s devel-opment journey uninterrupted.
And it is in that context, he said, that when they engage with Australia now and more in the post-Covid era, they will try to make Bangladesh more economically important to Australia, a major player in the Indian Ocean region. “Now we’re the 29th trade partner of Australia and from there we’d like to be in the first 20 in the next decade.”
The two-way trade that the two countries are having now is in the domain of US$ 2 billion and Bangla-desh expects that to go to US$ 5-10 billion with the inclusion of newer items and bigger items in the export and import baskets, said the Bangladesh envoy.
And similarly for imperatives in the strategic and geopolitical domain, he said, the greater understanding between Bangladesh and Australia will lead to more movement of students, skilled manpower, knowledge transfer, he said sharing his assessment.
In the post-Covid era and in the next decade, when the geopolitical tensions will create a new kind of compulsion for countries to look for newer partners, Bangladesh should be able to get into new diversi-fied areas of export and import, Sufiur Rahman said.
The High Commissioner said Bangladesh and Australia are having good growth in terms of trade but depending only on the duty- quota-free treatment of Australia, Bangladesh may not be able to reach where it intends to.
“That’s why we felt we should create a legal framework. That was the initial thought but in the process of discussion, it was clear that neither the Bangladesh nor Australian side were ready for an elaborate FTA like legally-binding arrangement,” he said.
The envoy said the two countries created a framework and it is not an FTA but it has got important ele-ments built into it.
Most importantly, he said, TIFA has created a very positive optics in Australia and also in Bangladesh that the two countries are considering each other as “important, reliable, trustworthy” trade and econom-ic partners.
“So, that’s a huge positive development. If you don’t create a positive perception and optics, it doesn’t move that easily. We’ve been able to create a positive optics through this instrument and look forward to the Joint Working Group mechanism under it,” he added.