Dhaka set to vote for Russian city as World Expo venue
Bangladesh appears to have missed an opportunity to improve its relations with the United Arab Emirates regarding manpower export due to its decision to support Russia instead of UAE as the venue for World Expo 2020. In October, 2012, the UAE government stopped issuing all kinds of visas for Bangladeshi passport holders. Now, only very selected individuals are getting UAE visas and there is no new issuance of labour visas, said sources concerned.
Four cities – Dubai of UAE, Ekaterinburg of Russia, Izmir of Turkey and Sao Paulo of Brazil — are contending to host the mega event in 2020 and a vote to choose the venue is scheduled to take place in Paris on November 27.
World Expos are a key meeting point for the global community to share innovations and make progress on issues of international importance such as the global economy, sustainable development and improved quality of life for the world’s population. The Bureau International des Expositions (BIE) is the intergovernmental organisation in charge of overseeing the calendar, the bidding, the selection, and the organisation of World and International Expos.
According to the sources, although UAE is very important for Bangladesh with regards to remittance, the government has already decided to vote for Russia’s Ekaterinburg, a decision Foreign Ministry officials described as strange and unproductive. The sources said that the Prime Minister, during her visit to Russia in January, made a pledge to Russian president Vladimir Putin and afterwards Dhaka had informed Moscow that it would vote for Ekaterinburg.
The concerned wing of the Foreign Ministry, West and Central Asia, recommended that Bangladesh should vote for Dubai. Even, Bangladesh’s Ambassador to Turkey, which has put forward one of its cities for hosting the event, gave his opinion in favour of Dubai.
The UAE is the 2nd highest remittance sending country and there is a potential for further employment of huge number of people in different sectors, a diplomat said “Nepal has already publicly declared its support for Dubai and the UAE would provide three lakhs Nepalese in the next three years,” he said, “We really missed an opportunity here to get the manpower issue right with UAE.”
UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan has recently phoned immediate-past Foreign Minister Dr Dipu Moni and sought for Dhaka’s support.
Supporting Russian bid will certainly not please the UAE, said another diplomat, who described the decision to vote for Russia as ‘unproductive’.
When asked if Bangladesh now could change it’s decision to vote Russia, a senior official said, “When the Prime Minister pledges that is supposed to be final. The Prime Minister cannot go back on her words.”
The sources said the officials concerned had discussed this issue with the new Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali.
When asked, another senior official said that as far as first voting on November 27 was concerned, Dhaka was all but certain to vote for Russia, but Bangladesh might think differently if it went to second or third voting.
-With The Independent input
