Bangladesh and the Netherlands have had five decades of partnership. That shifted from traditional development cooperation to trade and security. How do you assess the evolving relationship between the two countries?
As you mentioned, the Netherlands and Bangladesh do have a very long standing relationship. What you see is over the last couple of years, but certainly in the coming years, we will focus much more on a joint political level as well, for collaboration between the Netherlands and Bangladesh. We are similar countries, dealing with water management, dealing with deltas, and so on. We can learn from each other, we can work together.
We also are moving ahead in strengthening the economic relationship, but we want to do that from a development-focused trade relationship. So it is about shared interests, interests which are important for Bangladesh and interests which are important for the Netherlands, to see how we can collaborate together, mainly in the sectors of water, agriculture, the maritime sector, and of course in the garment industry as well. What can we do about creating business? What can we do in improving the business climate? What can we do in terms of youth employment in those sectors?
Can you shed some light on the Orange Corners initiative that you’ve recently initiated with Bangladesh? What progress has been made in supporting young entrepreneurs and startups? Do you have plans to further expand this particular project?
First of all, young people are the future. And there is a lot of young people and inspiring entrepreneurial young people in Bangladesh. Young people are not only the future, they are also the present.
The Orange Corners program in Bangladesh is a flagship of in terms of youth entrepreneurship initiatives. We are implementing the Orange Corners program together with YY Ventures, and also together with Sajida Foundation. And of course, it is also supported by the Unilever Bangladesh initiative.
It is really to see how we can work with entrepreneurs, both boys and girls, in helping them to take a first step. So what we do with the Orange Corners Bangladesh program is have an incubated opportunity. We do that across the country, in Dhaka, in Chattogram, in Khulna, in Rajshahi, and with gender inclusion.
Almost 50 per cent of the participants in the program are young women. We give training on the ecosystem, on entrepreneurial skills, etc. We have also a program which provides access to funding, which is called the Orange Corners Innovation Fund, which offers up to 5,000 euros for an incubation. That's track one.
If you move ahead and you get planning financing, we can go up to 50,000 euros, which then helps young entrepreneurs to start up their business with a good business plan. I think we have more than 80 enterprises now in the program already. And we are going to continue for the next three years, 2026 to 2028, with the program. The Netherlands is committed to youth entrepreneurship in Bangladesh, and especially for female-led companies.
Recently, the two countries signed an MOU on naval defence cooperation. How do you see the partnership in this particular sector and in the defence sector in the coming days?
The MOU we signed was on naval defence material cooperation. The Netherlands and Bangladesh are water nations.
We are nations working with the sea, with the oceans, with rivers, etc. And the collaboration is very much on naval defence material cooperation. This agreement really reflects the strong spirit, the partnerships, but also strategic way of working between our two countries and looking forward to the maritime sector.
The cooperation which we are looking at and which we are working upon is across several key areas. For example, defence naval equipment, exchange of expertise and information, but also education and training. You can think about the naval defence industry, but also in terms of maritime systems, in shipbuilding, in surveillance technology or in naval engineering, where we have a lot of experience and where we would like to continue working or invest and intensify the collaboration between the Netherlands and Bangladesh.
We do have already some companies working in the maritime sector. There are the dredging companies like Boscales, Van Oort, also Royal AITC, Damen on shipbuilding and Thales much more on port management, etc. And of course APM Terminals, which is a Dutch company under the Maersk Group, which is a big investment.
So we see so many opportunities related to the naval security, also to port management and the blue economy. Think about port security, think about naval research innovations, think about port management, and also dredging.
So other than the naval sector, do you have any plan to expand the defence cooperation, with the air force or the army? Did you receive any request from Bangladesh side?
Well, yes, in the sense. And that's the reason why after this interview I'll have to go to the BIPSOT Training Institute, the Bangladesh Institute for Peace Support Operations Training. There we do have also collaborations.
First of all, I commend Bangladesh as one of the biggest troop-contributing nations to peacekeeping operations. And we see the world, it is important to work together on peacekeeping. And we help Bangladesh in the training and the military peacekeeping intelligence. This is to train military people in intelligence, so that they are better prepared when they go for peacekeeping missions around the world. That's another kind of collaboration between the Netherlands and the Bangladeshi defence.
The Netherlands is the key partner in the Delta Plan 2100.So how do you foresee the cooperation in the context of water management, climate resilience, as well as coastal protection?
We are natural partners in water management, in Delta Plan development. So the Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100 is an important collaboration between the Netherlands and Bangladesh.
What I think is necessary and what we are working on together with the government and with private sector is towards a shift of the Bangladesh Delta Plan towards much more practical implementation-focused cooperation. And that's specifically on climate resilience, on water management and coastal protection. And I think that links very much to the initiative of Prime Minister Tarique Rahman in terms of his ambition in excavating the canals, the 20,000 kilometers of canals, etc.
So we are working together with our programs in restoring waterways, reducing waterlogging, improving drainage in both urban and rural areas. We have some projects, for example, in the Kallyanpur canal project, then there's Chattogram, and much more. We have so much expertise, also long-term collaboration with Bangladesh, in dredging, in sediment management, in integrated river and canal systems.
We would like to continue that collaboration which Dutch companies can bring. They can come up with new advanced methods, such as intelligent dredging, adaptive river management and major systems like the Jamuna River, restoration of canals for improved urban water supplies, which is related to the big campaign of Prime Minister Rahman, but also in wastewater management or flood protection infrastructure.
We have to bring the private sector in much more. Public-private partnerships in the water sector are part of the solution. We can help on the funding via Green Climate Fund, but also to see how we can build in and introduce better nature-based solutions of people-centered approaches in that regard. So yes, we see a lot of opportunities to continue working together with Bangladesh in integrated water resource management and coastal protection.
As we are heading towards LDC graduation, how do you see the broader economic cooperation in the context of the graduation?
First of all, Bangladesh and the Netherlands have that very long relationship, over 50 years, and we very much look forward to strengthen and deepen the mutual beneficial political and economic relationship between the two countries. But we also want to make sure that economic development is in a sustainable and in an inclusive way. Bangladesh is not just graduating, but is rather going through an economic transition where it is important to look at economic growth, and also inclusiveness, human rights and good governance, which help to improve the business climate in terms of being ready for more investments.
So far, Bangladesh has maintained a sustainable economic growth, but there are global challenges. We see ample opportunities ahead of the LDC graduation, and Bangladesh needs to be prepared for more sustainable economic growth. For the Netherlands, we would like to do that in the sector of sustainable water management, the maritime sector, and future-proof the garment industry, and of course in sustainable agriculture.
The Netherlands, together with the EU, would like to work with Bangladesh in that transition towards more trade and investment promotion, and we really hope that Bangladesh and the EU can work together on a soft landing in the graduation. This means concrete reforms in labour rights, in the business-enabling environment, but also in environmental standards.
About the people from Rakhine coming to the borders of Bangladesh, you are one of the countries from Day One which has been very supportive to resolve the crisis. But as times evolve, we see that the fund crunch and, on the other side of the border, the military takeover and the conflict with the establishment in Arakan. In that context, there is a two-pronged challenge. One is the reduction of funds and the current global crisis, and on the other hand, the ground situation is not that conducive to send the people back to their place of origin. How does the Netherlands see the situation and how can it contribute to the ongoing greater crisis?
Firstly, we are very concerned about the situation in the Rakhine state, and also concerned for the Rohingyas who have to fled from their own villages and towns due to their security reasons. Secondly, we very much commend the government of Bangladesh of hosting so many refugees for this time. I think the international community, including the Netherlands, should continue to support the government of Bangladesh in supporting the Rohingya refugee crisis.
For the Netherlands, we do that via our centrally funded programs, via the UN funding in that regard. At the same time, we need to find a good balance in making it more efficient, but also to see how we, in one hand, can work with the government of Bangladesh to facilitate an effective hosting of the Rohingya community in Bangladesh, but also to support the host communities in the region, until the moment is there for a safe, voluntary, and sustainable return to Myanmar as soon as possible.
We touched upon almost all the sectors in the cooperation. Is there any particular or major sector that will be considered an important area over the next few years in the relationship between the Netherlands and Bangladesh?
The Netherlands and Bangladesh should continue working together in the coming years, also from a geopolitical perspective. We have a geopolitical relationship, whether it's about peacekeeping, whether it's in New York or in international forums, we could and should work together in terms of the different sectors, we see a lot of opportunities to deepen that economic relationship.
In terms of the future, the garment industry is an important sector, it remains an important sector for Bangladesh, but how can we help and deepen and work together on making the garment industry more future-proofed? What can we do to strengthen the economic relationship from an economic perspective on sustainable water solutions or climate-smart agriculture opportunities, including seeds, agri-processing, and cool-chain logistics, but also to build together a maritime sector for the future? And in those sectors, we do have a lot of expertise where we can work together between the Netherlands and Bangladesh.
You mentioned that we want to look through the lens of geopolitics. Can you elaborate on that particular notion of the geopolitical aspect?
Yes, I think the geopolitical context is very challenging at the moment, both for the Netherlands, and certainly for Bangladesh. And that means that we need to work together at the international forum, but also to see how we can maybe fast-track solutions in terms of climate-smart agriculture, in terms of the energy sector, in terms of the future of the garment industry. So, the importance of building a strong relationship between the Netherlands, the EU, and Bangladesh, is vital in the current challenging geopolitical context.
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