Interview: Bangladesh could play vital role in BCIM Economic Corridor building: expert

Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) Economic Corridor could entwine world's most dynamic South Asia and East Asia regions closer in a web of shared dreams and prosperity, and Bangladesh could play a vital role in the corridor building.

Munshi Faiz Ahmad, chairman of the Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies, made the comments in an interview with Xinhua on Monday. China raised the proposal of building the BCIM Economic Corridor in 2013 to deepen friendly cooperation and connecting East Asia and South Asia.

Ahmad, who served as Ambassador of Bangladesh to China from 2007 to 2012, said that as a big economy, a big consumer and a big trading country," anything that China does or anything that happens in China will affect the whole world both economically and financially as well as in other ways."

Against this backdrop, he said the BCIM Economic Corridor looks set to be a game changer for Asian countries as two leading world economies - China and India are involved in the initiative.

Ahmad said that since closer integration between South Asia and East Asia has been held back by poor transport infrastructure, biggest investment will be in railway projects, followed by investment in ports and highways.

Financing infrastructure to promote integration in the regions is not easy. In this regard, he stressed the need for more and more relationship between financial institutions, and harmonization of their standards and relevant stakeholders of the countries to foster cultural and people-to-people exchanges and to reduce trade barriers.

Ahmad said Bangladesh and China are keenly interested in going ahead with the BCIM Economic Corridor, suggesting some bilateral projects be launched at an early date so that they could become a key driver of the next phase of Asian growth and rising prosperity. Endit