Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal said that Bangladesh is keen to sign a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Malaysia, reports BSS.

The minister said this when he held a bilateral meeting with a Malaysian delegation led by Malaysian Deputy Finance Minister Dato Indear Moha Shar Abdullah in Manila of the Philippines as part of the Annual Meeting of the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

Welcoming the decision of the Malaysian government for allowing Bangladeshi workers in all sectors of their country, he requested the Malaysian Deputy Finance Minister to recruit more manpower from Bangladesh.

Noting that Malaysia is an important country for attracting more FDI for Bangladesh, he said that since September 2022, the total FDI from Malaysia in Bangladesh's telecom sector reached $788 million.

Since Bangladesh is an attractive destination for FDI considering financial and other facilities, the Finance Minister called upon Malaysia to make more investments in Bangladesh.

Referring to the signing of the MoU between the two countries on the import of LNG from Malaysia, Kamal sought the cooperation of the Malaysian government to import LNG as per the requirement of Bangladesh.

In response, the Malaysian Deputy Finance Minister assured Kamal of considering the issues like the signing of FTA, LNG export to Bangladesh and recruiting more manpower after consultation with the concerned ministries and departments in Malaysia.

Lauding highly the socio-economic progress of Bangladesh, Abdullah termed Bangladesh a 'rising star'.

Kamal also thanked Malaysia for providing some 559,200 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines.

According to official data, Bangladesh exported goods worth $306 million to Malaysia in the fiscal year (2020-2021) against imports of $1.57 billion.

Bd-pratidin English/Golam Rosul