PM Hasina’s decision over Padma Bridge extra-courageous: Chinese envoy

PBC News:  Chinese Ambassador in Dhaka Li Jiming has called extra-courageous Prime Minister Shekh Hasina’s decision to go ahead with Padma Bridge project with domestic financing amid overseas funding debacle, expressing his doubts if an average leader of any country could have done so.

The envoy said some overseas development partners did not believe that Bangladesh government could ever materialize such a mega structure with own financing, without naming them.

“Nevertheless, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, steeled herself for all the doubts, pressures and allegations”, and decided to build the bridge with Bangladesh’s “own money, 100 percent Bangladesh’s own money,” he said.

The envoy said the decision required “tremendous courage and a strong sense of political responsibility” on the part of any head of the government.

Li Jiming added: “Whenever I think of the bridge, 3 words come to my mind: courage, determination and prosperity.”

The envoy said under the Bangladesh premier’s leadership the bridge emerged as a solid reality growing from a vision and from now on “nobody will ever doubt that Bangladesh cannot do it”.

Li Jiming, however, also took pride for his country’s stake in the project since a Chinese company was involved in constructing the bridge saying so far this was the largest bridge that Chinese companies had ever constructed outside China.

“So, I think accepting the challenge was also a courageous step taken by the Chinese side,” he said.

Asked what message Bangladesh carried abroad by building the structure without foreign financing, the envoy said “lesson has been learnt (that) you should trust Bangladesh people”.

“This lesson can get them better perform in Bangladesh market (in future),” he said in an apparent reference to the World Bank.