Dhaka, Bangladesh Global: Foreign minister AK Abdul Momen said on Sunday that developed nations should be happy if Bangladesh became a member of BRICS, a bloc of five countries—Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa—as they would no longer be required to provide financial support to the country.
Announcing prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s visit to South Africa from August 22 to 26 for the 15th BRICS Summit in Johannesburg at the invitation of South Africa’s president, Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa, Momen said that Bangladesh’s joining of the bloc would rather share the developed countries’ burden as they were not helping now Bangladesh the way it was expected.
Bangladesh joining BRICS would benefit us financially...the developed nations should be pleased with Bangladesh joining, as we would not require any financial support from them, said Momen.
He said that the prime minister would hold several bilateral meetings with heads of governments or states on the sidelines of the summit in Johannesburg.
He revealed that Bangladesh had already received a fund of around $1 billion for two development projects from the New Development Bank established by the BRICS.
Asked whether Sheikh Hasina would meet Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and Chinese prime minister Xi Jinping, he said that bilateral meetings with countries other than South Africa were not finalised as yet. Such meetings were usually finalised at the eleventh hour, he added.
Responding to another question, foreign secretary Masud Bin Momen said that as prime minister Sheikh Hasina would visit India next month to join the G-20 Summit in New Delhi, she would have more scope to hold a bilateral meeting with the Indian prime minister during that time.
Momen insisted that the BRICS leadership wanted to include a few more countries, including Bangladesh, as its members, but backed off the move of giving new membership at this moment without finalising its modalities.
Some 22 countries had shown interest in becoming BRICS members, and the five-member bloc’s leadership was discussing among them a consensus to grant new membership, the foreign minister added.
Momen said that the prime minister would be leading a small official team of a maximum of 14 during the visit and would also be accompanied by a delegation of businesspeople and representatives from the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission and the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority.
On August 23, Sheikh Hasina would deliver a speech as chief guest at the Bangladesh Trade and Business Summit jointly organised by BSEC and BIDA on the sidelines and would also address a regional conference of Bangladesh ambassadors stationed in African countries, the minister said.
On August 24, the Bangladesh prime minister will deliver a speech on behalf of Bangladesh as a member of the ‘New Development Bank’ in the ‘BRICS - Africa Outreach and the BRICS Plus Dialogues’ comprising representatives from seventy countries.
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