Bill Gates meets PM, wants to work with Bangladesh

GENEVA, May 17 (BSS): William H (Bill) Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corporation and co-chair of Bill and Milinda Gates Foundation has highly praised Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for her vision to build a digital Bangladesh. He has expressed keen interest in working together with Bangladesh to help achieve its millennium development goals. "Your visionary, modern and farsighted leadership would take Bangladesh into a new height of development," stated Gates to the PM when he paid a courtesy call at her hotel suite in Geneva Monday evening. The PM's Press Secretary Abul Kalam Azad told reporters that during the meeting they also discussed various aspects of information technology, agriculture, and women's empowerment in Bangladesh. The Microsoft chairman applauded the PM's vision to turn Bangladesh into a modern, digital country, and hopes that the country can crossover to a new height of development. During the meeting, the PM also stressed the importance of further expanding her vaccination programme and informed Gates about her government's diverse initiatives to reduce child and maternal mortality rate in Bangladesh, along with providing direct health services to the people. She also expressed her commitment to ensuring women's empowerment by establishing their rights in all spheres of society. The PM thanked Gates for his efforts in developing Bangladesh.