Bangladesh dismisses reviews linking building of Padma bridge with Chinese mission

Bangladesh on Sunday rejected reviews over hyperlinks between a newly-built highway bridge and China’s multi-billion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative, saying the nation’s longest bridge was completely financed by the federal government and no international funds have been utilized in its building.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is about to inaugurate on June 25 the almost 10-kilomtre-long Padma Bridge, a construction that will join by highway Bangladesh’s southwestern area with the capital Dhaka and different components of the nation.

“It (the bridge) is not related to the BRI and Bangladesh has not taken any foreign fund for building the structure either,” a foreign ministry spokesman said.

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a multi-billion-dollar project launched by Chinese President Xi Jinping when he came to power in 2013. It aims to link Southeast Asia, Central Asia, the Gulf region, Africa and Europe with a network of land and sea routes.

The foreign ministry’s reaction came after a group called ‘Bangladesh-China Silk Road Forum’ last week announced it would hold a panel discussion on “The Padma Bridge: An Example of Bangladesh-China Cooperation under Belt and Road Initiative” on June 22.

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Hours after the group distributed invitation letters to the media, the foreign ministry issued a statement refuting the bridge’s connection with the BRI, prompting the organisers to postpone their planned discussion the next day.

The group had said leaders representing different Bangladeshi political parties, including the ruling Awami League, and China’s envoy in Dhaka, and other officials will take part in the event.

“It has come to the eye of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that some quarters try to painting that the Padma Multipurpose Bridge has been constructed with the help of international funds and is part of the Belt and Road Initiative,” mentioned the international workplace assertion.

The assertion asserted that the Padma Multipurpose Bridge was completely funded by the Bangladesh authorities and “no foreign funds from any other bilateral or multilateral funding agency” contributed to its building.

It, nevertheless, mentioned each international in addition to Bangladeshi building companies have been engaged within the implementation of the mission and the completion of the bridge would “fulfill the long-cherished dream of the nation of connecting the 19 south-western districts with the remainder of the nation”.

The international workplace mentioned the bridge would pave a means for “collective prosperity, socioeconomic development of Bangladesh as well as enhanced regional connectivity”.

A Chinese embassy spokesman, in the meantime, advised a choose group of journalists in Dhaka that the bridge was constructed completely with Bangladeshi funds, including that: “We are proud that a Chinese construction company was involved in building the Padma Bridge”.

“The (China Railway Major Bridge Engineering Corporation) company which had built a bridge on our mother river (Yellow River) decades ago has built the first longest such bridge (over the Padma) outside China,” he mentioned.