Norway, Sweden accept Bangladesh as strategic partner to boost ties

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Norway and Sweden have expressed their eagerness to accept Bangladesh as a strategic partner to increase economic and political cooperation.
Adviser for Foreign Affairs Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury said this while briefing journalists at his foreign ministry office in the city Sunday on his just ended visit to the two Scandinavian countries, report agencies.
Norway was eager to take engineers well versed in English language to work for its oil sector, the foreign adviser (FA) said.
Besides, both Norway and Sweden were willing to recruit skilled manpower in information technology (IT) sector, the FA said.
The adviser said a process was underway to sign a five-year (2008-2012) development cooperation between Bangladesh and Sweden.
Sweden provides US$ 38 million assistance to Bangladesh annually, he said.
Norway would continue its economic assistance programme for women empowerment, democracy, human rights and environment, Chowdhury said.
The development cooperation agreement between Dhaka and Oslo had been extended until April, 2008, he said.
Norway and Sweden had expressed willingness to work with Bangladesh in the wake of current events in South Asia, the advisor said.
Chowdhury disclosed that Libya would import 2,000 more workers from Bangladesh.
He also announced that the government had prepared a seven-point strategy to export manpower across the world.
According to the proposed strategy, the government will explore new markets to export labour to Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Romania, Poland and Canada.
In addition, the government will also try to expand the labour market in countries such as the UAE, Oman, Qatar and Libya.
The strategy also aims at raising awareness about overseas employment in the poor regions like monga-hit Rangpur region.
Besides, law enforcers will be deployed to stop workers from being cheated.
The adviser said the Qatari labour minister had written to him and showed interest in visiting Bangladesh soon.
He said the government earned $5.31 billion in remittance in the first 10 months of the year.
Bangladesh's labour markets are mainly concentrated in the Middle Eastern countries, the UK and Malaysia.