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German Foreign Secretary Reinhard Silberberg today said his government will keep high level of assistance for Bangladesh despite current international financial crisis.
“There is a strong commitment by our government that the countries we are working with should not suffer from international financial crisis,” Silberberg told a post-talk press briefing at state guesthouse Padma after official talks with Foreign Secretary Touhid Hossain.
Silberberg who had one and a-half-hour discussions on trade, investment, aid and cooperation in international arena said, “We will keep high level of assistance and increase step by step as we promised as part of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) policy and this is a commitment that we will not put into dark.”
Germany has so far provided 4.4 billion euros (5.8 billion dollars) as direct assistance or indirect multilateral aid contributions to help combat poverty, protect human rights and achieve economic development.
On German investment in Bangladesh, he said the investment is made by private companies adding, “What we can do we can talk about to improve the framework for foreign investment.” He, however, said, “I think something could be done for further improvement of environment for foreign investment.”
About bilateral trade, he said Bangladesh has been enjoying trade surplus with Germany and EU, saying, “We have positive trend in bilateral trade and we favour a lot of Bangladeshi exports.”
Germany is the second-largest export destination for Bangladesh after the United States. The annual trade volume between the two countries is set to reach about 2 billion euros, with Bangladesh enjoying a trade surplus of more than 1.3 billion euros annually.
Asked whether Germany can extend cooperation to the Bangladesh government in holding trial of war criminals, Silberberg said this is a question of national interest and it must be dealt at national level and it would definitely be wrong to give advice from abroad.
However, he said, “If we can give support to this process, we feel definitely not to fail to do so, but it’s a national question.”
Silberberg said his visit here should be seen as a sign of encouragement to the newly elected government through free and fair elections. He said Germany and the international community stand ready to support Bangladesh in its new approach.
Earlier, Touhid said they had extremely free and frank discussion on bilateral trade, aid and investment as well as cooperation in international organisations.
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