China has expressed its surprise over a recent event where Taiwanese personal protective equipment (PPE) were handed over to the health ministry of Bangladesh.
The event prompted the Chinese Ambassador to Bangladesh, Li Jiming, to make a phone call to the Bangladesh foreign minister Dr AK Abdul Momen.
Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi, Health Minister Zahid Maleque and Post and Telecommunication Minister Mustafa Jabbar were present at the event.
Secretaries of these three ministries Dr Md Jafar Uddin, Md Abdul Mannan and Nur Ur Rahman respectively were also present.
"Yes, he contacted me over phone and said that they were surprised. But I have made it clear that Bangladesh firmly believes in One China Policy," the foreign minister told the FE.
According to Dr. Momen the event was wrongly interpreted by the media.
"Three of our ministers attended the event, which was organised by Walton, a local company. They were told that Walton was handing over the PPE. So they were there," he said.
"Later, it was found that some of the Walton PPE were from Taiwan as Walton has partnership with a Taiwanese company," the minister said, adding that a section of media also wrongly mentioned that Taiwan was providing the PPE, thus, creating confusion.
Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi also said that they were not aware of any link of Taiwan with the event on August 24.
"We were told that Walton was providing some PPE to the health ministry and that is why we were present at the programme," he told the media.
On the other hand, when contacted, an executive of Walton told the FE on Wednesday that the Taiwan External Trade Development Council wanted to donate some PPE to the health ministry.
Since they could not contact with the government directly, they requested us to hand over the PPE on behalf of them, he said.
Taiwan External Trade Development Council is a non-profit government cosponsored trade promotion organization in Taiwan.
Two representatives of the Taiwan Trade Centre in Dhaka were present in the PPE handing over programme.
mirostafiz@yahooo.com