I pay tribute to hundreds of thousands of our heroes for their supreme sacrifices for the independence of our motherland. My deep respect goes to the 30 million martyrs, freedom fighters, elderly, women and children, and all those people who withstood all the sufferings in the War of Liberation at the call of ‘Bangabandhu' in 1971. On this auspicious occasion of our National and Independence Day, I pay my deep respect to the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who led the nation to achieve independence through a nine-month long struggle of the people. The greatest Bangalee of all time, Bangabandhu is truly the source of inspiration for our nation and for millions of Bangladeshis living all over of the world. I would also like to convey my heartfelt felicitations and warm greetings to the valued members of Bangladesh community living in the brotherly Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Their hard work, contribution and invaluable support towards building our two economies are the strengthening blocks of the bondage and relationships existing between Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh. My deep appreciation and gratitude goes to the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman and Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman, deputy premier and minister of defense, who extended support to the well-being of Bangladeshi expatriates employed in various sectors in Saudi Arabia. The extraordinary gesture and generosity of the leadership and the people of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia towards expatriate community in Saudi Arabia is always revered by the people and government of Bangladesh. Bangladesh has maintained excellent relations with Saudi Arabia since long in the field of human resources with growing engagements in trade and investment in recent years. Over these years both the countries have learned to identify potential areas of economic cooperation for mutual benefit. Saudi Vision 2030 promoted by the Saudi government under the guidance of King Salman and the transformational development of the Kingdom offers Bangladesh to explore new areas of engagements in the fields of education, agriculture, power and infrastructure. At the same time Bangladesh's Vision 2021 to become a middle-income country and Vision 2041 to attain the status of a high mid-income country warrants Bangladesh to engage in a multi-sectorial cooperation with a major partner like Saudi Arabia. As the engagements are growing, Sheikh Hasina, the Prime Minster of Bangladesh, undertook six official visits to Saudi Arabia during her tenure in an effort to further strengthen the bilateral relations between Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia. During these visits she had meetings and audience with the Custodian of Two Holy Mosques and the Crown Prince, where the entire gamut of bilateral relations between Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia as well as regional and international issues of mutual interest were discussed. Recent development activities of Bangladesh, particularly in areas of food security, housing, education, and poverty reduction were also discussed. The leaders commended the unprecedented gain in momentum of bilateral relations of two countries in recent years and emphasized further expansion of the relations in coming days through cooperation and engagements at different levels. They also reiterated their commitment in continuing cooperation between Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh as development partners. Bangladesh playing active role in building a peaceful world To fulfill this commitment, exchange of economic and investment-related delegations between the two countries and utilizing the opportunities of economic, cultural and defense cooperation would play a pivotal role. It is a matter of great joy that exchange of delegations have already commenced which resulted in both the countries signing a MoU on Defense cooperation on Feb. 14, 2019. A high-level investment delegation from Saudi Arabia to Bangladesh headed by the Minister of Commerce and Investment and the Minister for Economy and Planning of Saudi Arabia along with officials from Public Investment Fund (PIF) and private sector has visited Bangladesh on March 7, 2019 signing two agreements and four MoUs on investment cooperation. During this visit, both the countries agreed to formulate a Joint Investment Strategy and form a Ministerial level Joint Working Committee to oversee the business and investment cooperation between the two countries. A Joint Business Council will also be formed taking members from the business communities of both the countries. In this regard, Bangladesh gratefully acknowledges kind gesture of the King and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia for taking personal interest in sending the ministerial level investment delegation to Bangladesh in March 2019. Bangladesh also appreciates the great visionary roles played by King Salman and Crown Prince for the development of the Muslim Ummah around the world and within the OIC. Bangladesh welcomes and actively participates in developing a peaceful Ummah devoid of extremist views. To that end, Bangladesh, like Saudi Arabia, maintains a zero tolerance policy against violent extremism and terrorism. In order to suppress extremism within the Muslim society, both Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia are willing to work together through sharing of information and experience. Besides, both the countries are determined to work to disseminate real message of Islam in the world so that none could benefit by misrepresenting Islam. It is expected that concerted initiatives would support the efforts for establishing a peaceful, progressive and harmonious world. We gratefully recall support of Saudi Arabia towards Bangladesh for regional and international issues, including on the issue of Rohingya. Bangladesh is also committed to stand by Saudi Arabia in all regional and international issues of importance for Saudi Arabia; it is prepared to extend active military support to protect holy cities of Makkah and Madinah as and when requested for, by the Kingdom. Bangladesh has been playing an active role in building a peaceful world by contributing one of the highest number of troops to the UN Peace Keeping Operations engaged in the protection and promotion of the peaceful interests of all the nations. Besides, Bangladesh's enlightened policy highlighting the need for an effective global cooperation on issues of strategic importance has made the country an important role player at the UN, NAM, OIC, Commonwealth and other international and regional organizations. Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia can work together for global peace and stability through the UN and OIC. Within the OIC, Bangladesh assumed the chairmanship of the Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) from May 2018 to February 2019. During these ten months, OIC countries met successfully in the Annual Coordination meeting in New York during the UN General Assembly and in an Extraordinary Summit on Palestine in 2018. Bangladesh's leadership in New York resulted in the UNGA adopting emergency resolutions. A number of ministerial meetings have also been hosted with tangible and verifiable outcomes, and quite a few meetings of the Inter-Governmental Group of Experts (IGGE) have taken place. The New York chapter of OIC under Bangladesh chairmanship had agreed on some best practices and modes of work. We hope to build on our productive engagements both at multilateral and bilateral level for a future of even closer cooperation and understanding between Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia. We would like to see the peoples of both countries going through a defining moment of heightened political and economic relationship especially in the field of trade, investment, education, health and manpower. With that note, I would like to urge upon all the members of Bangladesh community to contribute with their valuable experience and hard works to further accelerate the socio-economic developments of both Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh, and to further strengthen the excellent relationship between our two brotherly countries for mutual gains. Let us all work together to fulfill the dream of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to make Bangladesh "Sonar Bangla" (golden Bengal), a country of peace, prosperity and happiness under dynamic leadership of our Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Joi Bangla. Joi Bangabandhu. Golam Moshi Ambassador of Bangladesh
