Staff Reporter :
Russia will provide 30,000 tonnes of potash fertiliser for free to Bangladesh, Russian Ambassador Alexander Mantytskiy said during a meeting with Home Affairs Adviser Lt Gen (retd) Md Jahangir Alam on Thursday.
The Home Affairs Adviser thankde the Russian ambassador for the offer and has also requested Russia to provide a ship full of wheat to Bangladesh for free during the meeting, a press statement issued by the home ministry said.
“In the current flood situation, ensuring food security is a big challenge for the government. We are working tirelessly to achieve this goal.
The countrymen also has stand beside the flood hit people,” Adviser Jahangir said during the meeting at the Bangladesh Secretariat.
The adviser said that Russia is one of the top suppliers of wheat and fertiliser to Bangladesh, so far, Bangladesh has paid the Moscow for 2.6 million tonnes of imported wheat.
“As the prevailing economic conditions of Bangladesh including floods are not good, the payment of the last shipment of imported wheat was not possible,” the adviser said.
He requested the ambassador to continue the supply of wheat and fertiliser to Bangladesh in the current situation.
Counsellors of the Russian Embassy in Dhaka, Anton Chernov and Vladimir Mochalov, representatives of the embassy and senior officials of the Ministry of Home Affairs were present in the meeting.
The ambassador, in response, requested the Bangladesh government to notify Russia in writing on this matter, and assured consideration in that case.
The Russian ambassador also called for the existing cooperation between the two countries to be taken one step further in the modernisation and capacity building of the cyber security and forensic labs in Bangladesh.
The adviser expressed his agreement and said cooperation in this sector will be increased in the future. He recalled Russian cooperation to Bangladesh in the past.