Dhaka's proposal to lease arable lands in Myanmar on progress

Dhaka, July 23 (UNI) Bangladesh and Myanmar today made progress on Dhaka's proposal to lease some arable lands in Myanmar for agricultural production as a delegation from here will visit Yangon next week for further discussion.

''We made some progress in our talks to take lease of some arable lands of Myanmar for agricultural production by private entrepreneurs,'' acting Foreign Secretary Touhid Hossain told the reporters at the meeting.

Myanmar's Deputy Foreign Minister U Kyaw Thu led his country's four member delegation to the second consultation between the two nations.

The proposal to lease some patches of Myanmar's cultivable lands was laid during Foreign Adviser Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury's visit to Myanmar last April.

The Bangladesh side had offered US eight to 25 dollars to lease the lands where paddy, onion, soyabean, maize, tea and sugarcane could be grown. A vast area of land can also be used for livestock farming. Mr Touhid said a delegation from the private sector would go to Myanmar next week for holding further talks on the subject with the concerned authorities.

On direct road link with Myanmar, he said they discussed the tri-nation road link between Bangladesh, Myanmar and China aimed at boosting trade and tourism.

As part of the initiative, Bangladesh and Myanmar will finalise an agreement on the construction of 23-km road on July 27 when the Myanmar Construction Minister will be in Dhaka. The construction of 23-km road inside Myanmar will be financed by the Bangladesh government while construction of another 110 km to be taken up later.

''Construction of 23-km will start soon ''Once the road connectivity between the two countries is complete, we'll try to link it with Kunming in China,'' the Foreign Secretary said.

Earlier in April, the two countries initialed a MoU to connect Bangladesh and Myanmar through a ''friendship bridge.'' Bangladesh agreed to finance 23-km road from Taungboro to Bawlibazar inside Myanmar.

''Mr Touhid said issues of importing gas from Myanmar and repatriation of Rohingya refugees also came up at the meeting.

On import of hydro-electricity from Myanmar, he said positive indication is there and a feasibility study will be conducted.

About repatriation of more than 21,000 Rohingya refugees housed in two camps in Cox's Bazar, the Foreign Secretary said they are trying to pursue the matter and motivate the refugees to return to their homeland. Earlier, the Myanmar authorities cleared around 8,000 refugees for repatriation.

UNI