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RECENTLY this writer had the opportunity of visiting several Chinese cities, including Shenzhen where he had the opportunity of visiting a trade exhibition. During the visit he met a good number of businessmen and professional people. It was quite surprising to him that only a small section of people he met were having some knowledge about Bangladesh. More surprising was that most of the Chinese people, whose country is only two hours' flying time away from Dhaka, do not know even the name of Bangladesh.
The writer met several persons associated with business law houses and various chambers of commerce and industry. None of them could recollect to have ever seen any literatures covering either social or political or commercial aspects of Bangladesh.
It seems that the Bangladesh Embassy in China has not taken enough steps like publication and distribution of information literatures covering Bangladesh's basic facts, trade and commerce, socio-political history and other related information, during the last 30 years.
However, considering the existing cordial friendly relationship between Bangladesh and China there should be more wide ranging dissemination of information related to trade, commerce and industry of both the countries.
As far as Bangladesh is concerned, among others, the following steps may be of great help in exactly introducing Bangladesh to the Chinese people and with such steps the economic relations between the two countries can be further strengthened.
As the standard Mandarin Chinese is respected all over China, it is advisable that all Bangladesh - related information materials intended for distribution in China should be translated from Bengali into Mandarin Chinese and, if preferred, also into English.
While preparing the information literature it should be kept in mind which items are in greater demand and supply in both the countries.
China is a big country with demand for many goods. There are scores of Chambers of Commerce and Industry and various business associations. The total number of such organisations in China will exceed several hundreds. Therefore, the publications related to Bangladesh trade and commerce should be huge so that large-scale distribution can be made giving opportunity to the esteemed Chinese businessmen and industrialists to know enough about the Bangladesh market. It may be mentioned here that last year China emerged as the biggest exporting partner of Bangladesh.
Similar books having information may be prepared about the Chinese trade and commerce and industries for wide distribution in Bangladesh for the benefit of Bangladeshi businessmen and industrialists.
The distance between Bangladesh and the Chinese province of Yunnan is just a few hundred miles. The distance between Bangladesh-Myanmar border and China-Myanmar border is only a two-hour flying time. A link road between Chittagong and Kunming can be greatly helpful for the growing economic relationship between the two countries through land route. Bangladesh may immediately begin relaying the full-time Chinese CCTV Channel 1 with co-operation of the Government of China for better understanding of the Chinese socio-cultural and business situation by our people.
Perhaps it will be highly appreciated by all quarters if a direct road link is made between China and Bangladesh through Myanmar. This may increase the trade relationship by several hundred per cent within a couple of years, giving Bangladesh the opportunity of importing better consumer and industrial goods from China at much lesser prices and also tremendously increasing the volume of Bangladesh exports to China.
It will be highly appreciated if our ministry of foreign affairs and the ministry of commerce and the ministry of industries consider the urgent necessities of improving China-Bangladesh economic relationship. The ministry of foreign affairs of Bangladesh should take the prime initiative along with the ministry of commerce as well as the ministry of industries for implementation of such a programme for disseminating information concerning China and Bangladesh.
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The writer is the chairman of Bangladesh Intellectual Property Law Society, Dhaka
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