Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has ruled out the notion of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) losing its utility, saying that the regional grouping is ‘very much alive’.
“Saarc has not been ineffective. The eight-nation regional body is very much alive and I think it has an opportunity to do more work for changing the lot of the people of South Asian region,” she said. 
She added: “There is a need for regional cooperation for socioeconomic development of the people of the region.” 
The Bangladesh prime minister was speaking at an interactive session on “Harnessing Regional Cooperation in South Asia” in the 47th Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) at the Congress Centre at Davos of Switzerland, foreign ministry sources said in Dhaka yesterday.
Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, Indian Minister of Commerce and Industry Nirmala Sitharaman, representatives and civil society members from different Saarc countries joined the interactive session.
Last year, India and Bangladesh refused to take part in Islamabad summit which led to its postponement triggering fears over the very existence of the association.
Describing again poverty as the main enemy of the region, the prime minister said: “Our main emphasis should be how we could eradicate poverty.”
To eradicate poverty, she said, Saarc countries will have to boost trade and commerce as well as connectivity and the people-to-people contact.
“We have been working on rooting out poverty,” she said, mentioning the initiatives for establishing BBIN, BCIM-EC and BIMSTEC forums. 
She said the BCIM-EC forum is being set up to integrate China in the South Asian region on larger scale, while Safta is being strengthened for boosting trade and commerce.
The prime minister also said an initiative has been taken to launch Saarc Satellite on the orbit for development of telecommunications in the region.
While talking about the US threat of withdrawal of their investment after the election of new US government, the prime minister said in the present global context, it’s not an easy task to shift investment from one country to another location. 
In this connection, she said her government is providing training to the youths to turn the huge manpower into human resources. 
On the climate change issue, Hasina said her government has constituted Climate Change Trust Fund worth $400mn to combat climate change. “We have also undertaken 134 action plans for mitigation and adaptation of climate change,” she said.
She urged the developed countries responsible for climate change to come forward to the assistance of climate vulnerable nations.
Replying to a question that whether there would be any impact on environment due to construction of coal-based power plants in Bangladesh, the prime minister said high and modern technology is being used in building the coal-based power plants to keep pollution at the lowest level. 
The prime minister said 24,000 megawatt electricity would be needed to turn Bangladesh into a middle income country by 2021. “To generate such volume of electricity, we will have to use coal,” she added.
Hasina said the government has taken initiatives for generating electricity through renewable energy and setting up nuclear power plants.
“Besides, we have to increase use of coal for boosting power production,” she said.

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