Dhaka – With two decades of six percent growth per year, Bangladesh is on track to become a top-30 economies by 2030 despite ‘serious’ security challenges, says the United States.“Bangladesh, while facing serious security challenges, has gone from a food importer to a food exporter,” said US Deputy Assistant Secretary Angela Aggeler while addressing the East-West Center International Media Conference in New Delhi on Friday, UNB news agency reported.
Aggeler also said Bangladesh lifted tens of millions out of extreme poverty, and met several of its Millennium Development Goals, sharply reducing child mortality and improving maternal health.
“USAID played an important role in those achievements, and it’s another great example of what can be accomplished with U.S. partnership,” said the US Deputy Assistant Secretary.
She mentioned that US Secretary John Kerry noted two weeks ago in Dhaka, “We’re not sure that anyone would have predicted a decade ago that the U.S. and Bangladesh would be consulting so closely on regional security, that Bangladesh would be using American cutters to patrol the Bay of Bengal, and that our shared agenda would include everything from counterterrorism to environmental health and sustainability of our oceans.”
Aggeler said each of the countries in the region has a unique set of challenges, but also presents tremendous opportunities, according to US Department of State.
“Above all, we share a commitment to stability, security, and economic growth that we can work to strengthen and support. We believe there’s great promise in Indo-Pacific cooperation, and will continue to work towards that,” she said.
By 2030, the US Deputy Assistant Secretary said, India will be the globe’s most populous nation, with a rising middle class of a half a billion people and a reservoir of entrepreneurial ingenuity and talent.
Sri Lanka is rebalancing its own foreign and economic policies thanks to its strategic maritime location to some of the largest markets in Asia, she said.
“The biggest economic factor is of course India, and Secretary Kerry’s visit here just last week is emblematic of the strength and depth of our relationship. President Obama has called this relationship one of the truly defining partnerships of the 21st century, and in the past decade we have seen enormous progress in our bilateral relations,” Aggeler added.
