Go East....As China Comes To Town

FE Report

One-to-one business meetings between the local business entrepreneurs and visiting 50-member Chinese economic and trade delegation will be held today (Sunday) in the city's Bangladesh-China Friendship Conference Centre. Assistant Minister of Chinese Ministry of Commerce Wang Chao, Chinese Ambassador in Bangladesh Zheng Qingdian, Ministry of Commerce Secretary Feroz Ahmed and DCCI President Hossain Khaled will also remain present on the occasion.Bangladesh-China business dialogue will be followed by purchase contacts signing ceremony between 11 Chinese importers and 11 Bangladeshi exporters for export of raw jute, leather, sea-food, herbal and pharmaceuticals medicines, textile, ready-made garments, chemicals etc from Bangladesh to China. Chinese conglomerates -- Sinochem Corporation, Chinatex Group, China National Light Industrial Products Import and Export Corporation, China Grains and Oils Group Corp, China Mecho Corporation, China Textile Resources Corporation (CTRC), China National Native Produce and By-Product I/E Corporation, COFCO Grains and Oils Imp and Exp Co, China National Service Corporation for Chinese Personal Working Abroad, China National Complete Plant Import and Export Corporation Limited, and China National Machinery and Equipment Import and Export Corporation (CMEC) -- with interest in items like jute, leather, sea-food, herbal and pharmaceuticals medicines, textile, ready-made garments, chemicals, fuel oil and petroleum, gas, fertiliser, hotel, real estate, rubber etc will remain present in the one-to-one business meetings.

A friend of mine enrolled in Chinese language course in Confucius Institute at North South University was describing how her Chinese teacher was lamenting of the 'Bangla Peoples' lack of enthusiasm about learning Chinese. According to her, 20 years from now, the land of the 2 billion red dragons will be the center of world's trade and commerce. So it is high time that 'Bangla People' learn Chinese and make the most of their business opportunities. Some of the Bangladeshi students did argue that our base of basic English is very poor in the first place, let alone learning such a difficult langauge such as Chinese. However, some students also mentioned there are a few, who are learning French, mostly because French has got a different sort of appeal associated with it, its 'cool' if you are learning French....but learning Chinese? You must be a nutter! So the frustrated Chinese professor was advised by a few sympathised enthusiastic Bangladeshi students to better promote the Confucius Institute. One idea was if the Chinese embassy makes available the list of Chinese companies in Bangladesh, the Institute could forward its students to those companies for jobs, as those students will be well equipped with Bangla, English and ofcourse Chinese. Say big names like ZTE and Huawei are only a few to mention, there are many others. The professor also mentioned that 'so many Bangla People have business relations with China....I wonder why they don't want to learn the language, even if they get enrolled, they don't continue, I understand that everyone is busy, but you have to make time for achieving something worthwhile in the end'.

So as China comes to town, I think we need a rethinking of our USPs, the language itself is a good starting point, that is the proposition.