Boosting trade, business discussed

FE Team | Published: November 09, 2009 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her Bhutanese counterpart Jigmey Thinley holding a joint press conference Saturday at Thimpu. — PID Photo

THIMPHU, Nov 8 (UNB): Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had an audience with ex-King of Bhutan Jigme Singye Wangchuck at his palace Sunday.
The two leaders discussed ways of enhancing the bilateral trade and business, and government-to-government and people-to-people contacts between the two friendly countries.
During the meeting, the Monarch gave special thanks to Sheikh Hasina for her strong and visionary leadership in the international forums for arranging international assistance for Bangladesh, Bhutan and other countries that were the worst sufferers of climate change due to global warming.
The visiting Prime Minister apprised the King that she at the upcoming Copenhagen climate meet would again inform the international community about the vulnerability of Bangladesh, Bhutan and other countries to the climate threats.
During the meeting, held in a very cordial manner, the Prime Minister and the former Bhutanese Monarch, the world's youngest King when he ascended to the throne in 1972, also discussed various other issues of national, regional and international development.
Briefing newsmen after the meeting, Deputy Press Secretary to the Prime Minister Nazrul Islam said the Bangladesh Prime Minister thanked the former King for voluntarily introducing democracy in Bhutan.
In reply, Jigme Singhe Wangchuck, father of the present King of the Himalayan Kingdom, told Hasina that democracy in Bhutan was not introduced suddenly in a day. Before establishing democracy, he had worked behind it for 20 years.
As Sheikh Hasina recalled that Jigme Singhe Wangchuck in 1972, as the then young King of Bhutan, visited Bangladesh, he had said his family had a familial relation with the family of Bangladesh's Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.