PM's welcoming remarks to Bangladeshi Prime Minister
A transcript of the remarks given by Prime Minister David Cameron and Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in London on Thursday, 27 January 2011.
A transcript of the remarks given by Prime Minister David Cameron and Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in London on Thursday, 27 January 2011.
Prime Minister
Well, it gives me great pleasure to welcome the Bangladeshi Prime Minister to Number 10 Downing Street. We have a good and strong relationship between Britain and Bangladesh. We have a great shared interest in tackling issues like climate change, and obviously the development agenda where I think the United Kingdom is now one of the largest aid partners in Bangladesh and carrying out some important work. And obviously, also, there is a large Bangladeshi community in the United Kingdom that plays an important role in our country. And we’ll have many subjects to discuss this morning: aid, development, climate change, the economic relations between our countries and also the importance of dealing with extremist terror in both our countries where we have a shared interest and need to make some good progress, but a very warm welcome to you.
Bangladeshi Prime Minister
Thank you very much. It’s a good opportunity to come to Great Britain. We have been receiving support from your country since our liberation to build up our country. The aid you have given, especially for women, children, for our development, for infrastructure development, then the energy sector.
Also we are working for combating terrorism; the counter-terrorism activities, we are receiving tremendous support.
So I feel that our two countries, are working in many areas; in international areas, and especially global warming - climate change. We received tremendous support because, as you know, Bangladesh is a country, the worst sufferer of climate change. We are not responsible for this, but we are sufferers, our people are going to suffer. So already we have set up our agenda on how to face this climate-change damage. We have action plans and we have already started our work, and with our own finance we set up a fund but we always received support from your great country; that is really very, very encouraging. In future we will work together for our trade and business.
There are many other issues we can discuss; many of our people are living in your country and also many students are studying. They are not only studying, they are also contributing to your country too; our people are also contributing to your economy so we have many areas, many issues we can discuss, we can resolve and we can work together for the prosperity of our peoples - that is important, yes.
As you know, my agenda is very clear, I want to build up my country as a poverty-free country, a poverty-free, illiteracy-free country, and I want to make sure that our people get healthcare, health service and education. Thank you.
Prime Minister
Thank you very much indeed. Thank you.