Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will go to Italy to attend the UN Food Systems summit later this month

Five agreements are likely to be signed during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's upcoming visit to Italy. In between, the two sides are discussing the signing of agreements on immigration, energy, cultural cooperation, defence and ICT and cyber security.

Besides, she will also address the main event at the Food Systems Summit to be held in Rome from July 24-26.

Experts believe that the visit to Italy is strategically important. According to them, this will have a major positive impact on bilateral relations.

Agreements on defence and ICT and cyber security with Italy will facilitate taking the relationship to a strategic level in the future. Besides, they believe that Italian technology can play a big role in the production of small and medium industries in Bangladesh.

In this regard, former foreign secretary Md Shahidul Haque said: “There are many opportunities for cooperation with Italy. In the production sector, there are various technologies of medium quality in that country and if Bangladesh can collect them, there is a possibility of creating great opportunities in the production sector.”

Former ambassador of Bangladesh to China Munshi Faiz Ahmad said: “Small and medium industries of Bangladesh are developing. On the other hand, if Italy's low technology (low tech) is brought to Bangladesh, there is a possibility of creating a large market here.”

It is to be noted that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will go to Italy to attend the UN Food Systems summit. 

At the same time, there is a possibility of a bilateral meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. Before this, Sheikh Hasina last visited Italy in 2020.

Agreements likely to be signed

Migration and Mobility Agreement: Seven to eight thousand seasonal Bangladeshi workers have been going to Italy for the last two years along with other countries under Italy's global Flussi program.

The Flussi program is for the rest of the world and Bangladesh's interest is to make a separate deal with Italy to send Bangladeshi workers in construction or shipbuilding or other sectors where Italy has an interest. Currently, Italy sources workers from Eastern Europe in those sectors.

Defence Agreements: Recently Bangladesh and Japan signed defence agreements covering training, UN peacekeeping, capacity building, procurement and other issues. Bangladesh defence agreement with Italy is under discussion. If there is a defence agreement with Italy, then Bangladesh will make such an agreement with any other European country. Earlier, Bangladesh signed a defence agreement with France in 2021.

Energy Agreement: Under this will be the import of LNG from Italy, renewable energy cooperation, energy refining technology among others.

Areas of cooperation

There is great potential for cooperation with Italy in the areas of migration and low-quality technology transfer.

Former secretary Md Shahidul Haque said: “Many Bangladeshis cross to Italy illegally, which Rome does not look favourably on. Stopping it is very necessary for long-term and sustainable relationships.”

He said that if it was possible to send people to Italy through legal channels, it would seem to reduce the illegal flow and it would help to improve relations.

Regarding the transfer of low technology, he said, many African countries, especially Egypt, provide low technology to Italy and the products produced by Italy's technology from Egypt are exported to various neighbouring countries.

If it is possible to manufacture the products of Italian technology in Bangladesh, then it will be possible to send them to Nepal, Bhutan and North East Indian states besides the domestic market.

In terms of strategic relations, he said: “India, China and Japan have strategic relations with Bangladesh and the relations with those countries should be strengthened. Now we may be interested in establishing strategic relations with any European country.”

The two largest countries in Western Europe are Germany and France. Mentioning that it would be good to have a strategic relationship with Italy, he said: "Before establishing a strategic relationship with a country, we must consider whether it is in conflict with the strategic relationship established with another country or whether it is sending a wrong message."