Staff correspondent :<\/p>\n
Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen today said Bangladesh is not subservient to any country while it never tilted towards China as Dhaka maintains a \u201cbalanced and independent\u201d foreign policy.\u201cWe are not anyone\u2019s tail . . . We are not China\u2019s tail,\u201d he said speaking at an interaction with members of Diplomatic Reporters Association of Bangladesh (DCAB) at the Foreign Service Academy here.Momen added: \u201cSome people think we are rushing towards China, but (actually) we are not heading towards anyone.\u201dHe called Beijing a development partner but ruled out any possibility of being exposed to \u201cChinese debt trap\u201d, an idea which, he said, was propagated by some groups or \u2018pundits\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a wrong perception. Some pundits say this and many believe it, especially some foreign institutions. Under no circumstance, will we fall into Chinese debt trap\u201d, Momen said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are very prudent, careful in taking foreign loans. We do not take unnecessary loans\u201d.
\nMomen said Bangladesh steadily continued to follow Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman\u2019s historic foreign policy – Friendship to All, Malice towards None \u2013 to pursue its aim to ensure the country\u2019s development through public welfare.The foreign minister termed Dhaka\u2019s ties with next door neighbour India \u201crock-solid\u201d and \u201cwe are in a golden chapter in our relations with India\u201d.He said Dhaka-Washington relation was good as well and according to US President Joe Biden himself Washington wants to improve relations with Bangladesh.<\/p>\n
Dhaka, Momen said, was maintaining close ties with Middle Eastern countries including Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have good relations with all countries. That is why when we contest any election in the UN, we win,\u201d he said.According to IMF, a country could be exposed to risks of being debt-trapped if over 55 percent of its overseas loan comes from a single source or country.But, Momen said, foreign loans stake in Bangladesh\u2019s GDP was 13.78 percent, of which 61 percent was provided by international agencies like ADB, IMF and the World Bank while Japan became Bangladesh\u2019s highest single country loan provider with 17 percent.from China, the foreign minister said, Bangladesh took US$ 3.5 billion, which is 0.75 percent of the total GDP.DCAB organised the event as its flagship programme while the interaction was moderated by the forum\u2019s President Rezaul Karim Lotus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Staff correspondent : Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen today said Bangladesh is not subservient to any country while it never tilted towards China as Dhaka maintains a \u201cbalanced and independent\u201d foreign policy.\u201cWe are not anyone\u2019s tail . . . We are not China\u2019s tail,\u201d he said speaking at an interaction with members of Diplomatic Reporters Association of Bangladesh (DCAB) at the Foreign Service Academy here.Momen added: \u201cSome people think we are rushing towards China, but (actually) we are not heading towards anyone.\u201dHe called Beijing a development partner but ruled<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1816,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bangladesh"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1815"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1817,"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1815\/revisions\/1817"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}