Excellency Benoit Préfontaine, High Commissioner of Canada in Bangladesh, accompanied by Ms. Corinne Petrisor, Counsellor and Senior Trade Commissioner of the High Commission, paid a courtesy call to Ms. Sultana Afroz, Secretary to the Government of Bangladesh and CEO, Public Private Partnership Authority (PPPA) on 25 November 2020. Dr. Khalilur Rahman, Bangladesh High Commissioner-designate to Canada, also attended the meeting.

Ms. Sultana Afroz, CEO of PPP Authority, noted the warm relationship between the two countries and also expressed her appreciation for standing by Bangladesh’s development journey. She expressed her hope that the Bangladesh High Commissioner-designate to Canada will promote Bangladesh’s interest and strengthen the collaboration between the countries in the PPP program.

The Canadian High Commissioner showed interest in broadening the scope of the bilateral economic partnership with Bangladesh. He also recognized the importance of public private partnership to leverage resources for undertaking projects beneficial to both the Canadian private sector and Bangladesh. Dr. Khalilur Rahman highlighted the importance of PPP for accelerating Bangladesh’s development and focused on possible areas of working together.

A presentation outlining the roles, responsibilities, and achievements of PPPA was shared with the dignitaries. Bangladesh has a pipeline of 79 projects, of which six projects have started construction work. PPPA supports projects in various sectors, such as transportation, tourism, health, housing, and many others.

Mr. Benoit Préfontaine has also shown his keen interest in exploring Government to Government (G2G) PPP modality to develop projects through collaboration.

Ms. Sultana Afroz expressed her hope that the two distinguished High Commissioners will encourage Canadian private investors to invest in Bangladesh through PPP projects.