Bangladesh-Algeria Endorsed Agreement on Energy Cooperation

Humaiun Kobir, State Minister for Foreign Affairs held a bilateral meeting with Ahmed Attaf, Foreign Minister of Algeria at Algiers today.

The two Ministers discussed various bilateral, regional and multilateral issues of mutual concern. They particularly focused on cooperation between Bangladesh and Algeria in diverse sectors including energy, fertilizers, agriculture, textile, trade, commerce, education and people to people contacts etc. They discussed ways to further promote bilateral trade and investment in the field of energy for mutual interests of both the countries.

The State Minister expressed satisfaction for signing of the MOU on cooperation in the field of hydrocarbon between Bangladesh and Algeria. This engagement opened a new horizon for Bangladesh to import LNG, LPG and other petroleum products from Algeria under G2G mechanism and created opportunities to work jointly to develop refinery, LNG infrastructures, and to explore coal and gas fields in Bangladesh. The Algerian Petroleum Institute expressed interest to provide training and knowledge sharing programme for Bangladeshi Engineers, technicians in the field of energy, to develop self-reliance energy skills of Bangladesh. Algerian Foreign Minister shared that the President of Algeria gave his isntant directives for signing the MoU on priority basis in response to the need of Bangladesh for energy.

While referring Bangladesh's necessity to import fertilizer to support agriculture sector, the Algerian Foreign Minister responded that Algeria would like to collaborate with Bangladesh in this sector. He requested Bangladesh’s experience to revive textile industry of Algeria; and expressed interest to collaborate with Bangladesh in the field of pharmaceutical, leather and textile.

They underscored the importance on holding Foreign Office Consultations regularly; and the next round of consultation would be held in Dhaka soon.

They discussed the importance of exchanging high level visits to further consolidate the existing bilateral relations between the two countries. The meeting was held in a cordial, friendly and warm atmspher