BD, Bulgaria sign MoU to initiate institutional coop

Bangladesh and Bulgaria have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Foreign Office Consultations (FOC) to initiate institutional cooperation in all areas of mutual interests.

Bangladesh ambassador to Turkey Md Zulfiqur Rahman, who is also in charge of Bulgaria, and Angel Velitchkov, Deputy Foreign Minister of Bulgaria signed the MoU in a brief ceremony held at the Bulgarian foreign ministry in Sofia on Wednesday.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the MoU on FOC would now allow holding of regular consultations between Bangladesh and Bulgarian governments in all areas of mutual cooperation. This is the first instrument concluded between these two friendly countries to initiate institutional cooperation.

On this occasion, the Bulgarian Deputy Foreign Minister dwelt at length on the potential of the two countries in areas of trade, economic, cultural and technological cooperation, including agriculture.

Praising Bangladesh's sustained economic growth of more than 6 per cent for the last few years, he said that it was only natural for Bulgaria, as an EU member, to establish economic and commercial cooperation with a rising economy like Bangladesh.

The Deputy Foreign Minister referred to the meeting between the foreign ministers of the two countries in New Delhi on the sideline of the recent ASEM Ministerial meeting and hoped that Bangladesh would also attend the ASEM Summit scheduled for October 2014 in Milan.

Bangladesh ambassador Zulfiqur Rahman said Bangladesh would focus on economic and commercial as well as cultural and educational relations with Bulgaria and hoped that the excellent cooperation existing between Bangladesh and Bulgaria in relevant multilateral forums would also be further strengthened in the days ahead.

He also expressed the hope that the just concluded MoU would open a new vista in re-energising Bangladesh-Bulgaria relations that reached its peak in Bangladesh's post-independence period but waned after the heinous 1975 assassination of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.