DHAKA: Bangladesh and Pakistan have started direct government-to-government trade after decades of troubled relations with imports of 50,000 tons of rice, Dhaka said Tuesday.
The two countries were once one nation but split in a brutal 1971 war, with Bangladesh drawing closer to India.
However, long-time Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina was ousted in an August 2024 revolution, fleeing by helicopter to her old ally India, where she has defied extradition requests to face charges of crimes against humanity.
Relations between India and Bangladesh’s new government have been frosty since then, allowing Islamabad and Dhaka to rebuild ties slowly.
Direct private trade between the countries restarted in November 2024, when a container ship sailed from Pakistan’s Karachi to Bangladesh’s Chittagong.
It was the first cargo ship in decades to sail directly between the countries.
“For the first time we are importing 50,000 tons of rice from Pakistan, and it is the first government-to-government deal between the two countries,” Ziauddin Ahmed, a senior official at the food ministry in Dhaka, said Tuesday.
Bangladesh’s Directorate General of Food signed a memorandum of understanding with the state-owned Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) in January for rice imports.
Ahmed said trade with Pakistan offers a “new avenue of sourcing and competitive pricing,” with state authorities in recent years importing the staple from India, Thailand and Vietnam.
Imports are critical to low-lying Bangladesh, a nation that is among the world’s most vulnerable to climate change, with large areas made up of deltas where the Ganges and the Brahmaputra rivers wind toward the sea.
The country of 170 million is particularly at risk of devastating floods and cyclones — disasters that only stand to accelerate as the planet keeps warming.
Private Bangladeshi companies have imported Pakistani rice for years, but Pakistani goods previously had to be off-loaded onto feeder vessels — usually in Sri Lanka, Malaysia or Singapore — before traveling on.
India and Pakistan — carved out of the subcontinent at the chaotic end of British colonial rule in 1947 — have fought multiple wars and remain bitter foes.
Meanwhile, China is wooing Bangladesh’s leaders, with members of the powerful Bangladesh National Party (BNP) on a visit to Beijing, the latest group offered a tour after trips by members of the Jamaat-e-Islami and other Islamist parties.
India has long been wary of China’s growing regional clout and the world’s two most populous countries compete for influence in South Asia, despite a recent diplomatic thaw.
China said this month that it was preparing dedicated hospitals for Bangladeshi patients after relations soured with India, which was once a major health care destination for them.
Bangladesh and Pakistan begin direct government-to-government trade
https://arab.news/g2k8d
Bangladesh and Pakistan begin direct government-to-government trade
- Senior food ministry official says Bangladesh is importing 50,000 tons of rice from Pakistan
- Private Bangladeshi companies have imported Pakistani rice for years via countries like Sri Lanka
Pakistani PM to attend Board of Peace summit as part of Islamic bloc effort — FO
- Board will hold its first meeting on Feb. 19 in Washington to discuss Gaza’s reconstruction
- Foreign office spokesman says no dates finalized for visit to Pakistan by Saudi Crown Prince
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan confirmed on Thursday that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will attend the first meeting of President Donald Trump’s newly formed “Board of Peace” in Washington on Feb. 19, positioning Islamabad as part of a joint Islamic diplomatic initiative focused on Gaza.
A UN Security Council resolution, adopted in mid-November, authorized the board and countries working with it to establish an international stabilization force in Gaza, where a fragile ceasefire began in October under a Trump plan on which Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas signed off.
Under Trump’s Gaza plan, the board was meant to supervise Gaza’s temporary governance. Trump thereafter said the board, with him as chair, would be expanded to tackle global conflicts. The board will hold its first meeting on Feb. 19 in Washington to discuss Gaza’s reconstruction.
Speaking at a weekly press briefing in Islamabad, Foreign Office spokesperson Tahir Andrabi confirmed Sharif’s participation.
“Yes, I can confirm that the prime minister will attend the Board of Peace meeting... He will be accompanied by the deputy prime minister,” Andrabi said, describing Pakistan’s participation as part of a broader collective engagement by Muslim-majority states.
“We have joined the Board of Peace in good faith… We are in it, not in isolation, not as one voice, but as a collective voice of eight Islamic Arab countries,” he said.
“Our collective voice is resonating in the Board of Peace, and we will continue to strive for the right and progress and prosperity of the people of Palestine. And also aimed at the long-term solution of the Palestine issue in order to create a state of Palestine in accordance with the pre-1967 border with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital.”
Pakistan does not recognize Israel and has consistently supported a two-state solution based on pre-1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state.
Responding to reports about a possible visit to Pakistan by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Andrabi said no dates had been finalized.
“There was a reference to the visit in one of the joint statements [issued after two visits of Sharif to Saudi Arabia last year] that this visit will take place this year. But I am not aware of its timing as yet,” the FO spokesman said.
Andrabi also addressed Pakistan’s financial engagement with the United Arab Emirates, confirming that Abu Dhabi had rolled over $2 billion in deposits with Pakistan’s central bank.
“The tenure of the rollover is prerogative of the depositor. But what I can assure you is that through the positive role of the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister [Ishaq Dar], we can say that the rollover is assured,” he said.
Last month, Pakistan’s central bank confirmed the extension of the $2 billion deposit, which has helped support the country’s foreign exchange reserves as Islamabad implements reforms under an ongoing International Monetary Fund bailout program.
Andrabi added that Pakistan currently faces “no external finance gap.”
