The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

French Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Ecology, Energy, Sustainable Development and Land Planning, Jean-Louis Borloo, arrives Dhaka today on a day's visit to Bangladesh for bilateral talks with the Government in the context of the upcoming Climate Change Conference to be held in Copenhagen in next December.

Jean-Louis Borloo will lead a 12-member

delegation to Bangladesh. During his brief visit, he will make courtesy calls on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Minister for Foreign Affairs Dr. Dipu Moni, Minister for Food and Disaster Management Dr. Abdur Razzak and State Minister for Environment and Forest Dr. Hassan Mahmud.

Jean-Louis Borloo, number two in the French Government, will present the French position regarding climate change negotiations, particularly for the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) as Bangladesh plays a very important role in this group.

He will put emphasis on the absolute necessity for Copenhagen to agree on a "Climate Justice plan" to finance adaptation and sustainable development for the developing countries.

The Copenhagen Agreement must be an opportunity to go one step further on the way to solidarity-based development for the least developed countries. The "Climate Justice plan" places economic development and poverty eradication at the heart of the fight against climate change

After the election of President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007, the French government organised an Environment Roundtable (Grenelle Environment), with all the stakeholders, to develop a national Strategy on Climate Change, particularly to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. With the all-out support from the French President, Jean-Louis Borloo was quite successful in developing such a strategy for France.

So far a series of measures have been taken to address the climate change threat in France since then. His ministry has stressed the need for building new-energy efficient housing, positive-energy buildings, and undertaking programme to promote renewable energy and developing eco-city centres. Introduction of pollution free transportation with the development of clean vehicles, railway network and the protection of bio-diversity, establishing ecological agriculture and improvement of water quality are among the top priorities of his ministry, says a press release issued by French Embassy in Dhaka.

Fine ministers

Contd from page 1

Tongi to ease terrific traffic congestion in the capital city.

The parliamentary standing committee on Planning Ministry asked the government to cancel the project for issuing MRPs and take steps for introduction of electronic passports to save crores of public money.

The parliamentary body said the government would have to spend another big amount of money to issue electronic passports to people when the use of MRPs will end in 2014. The developed world has already introduced electronic passports, the body said.

The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) in last March approved Tk 3.50 billion for MRPs and visa project of the Home Ministry.

Under the project, the Department of Immigration and Passport under the Home Ministry has already begun the process to implement the project to hand over some 18.4 million MRPs to the people by the year 2014.

Bangladesh will have to introduce MRPs to comply with the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) requirements by April 2010. If the country fails to become a member of ICAO, Bangladesh citizens' access to international manpower markets as well as obtaining all types of visas would be difficult.

In the first ever practice in Bangladesh's parliamentary history two parliamentary standing committees yesterday held a joint meeting to find out ways to recover huge amount of default loans and stressed introducing alternative disputes resolution (ADR) system to get better results in loan recovery.

On invitation of the parliamentary standing committee on Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Ministry, members of the parliamentary standing committee on Finance Ministry joined the meeting at the Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban.

The meeting, attended by ruling party and opposition MPs, discussed ADR system as an effective measure to recover default loans of over Tk 20,000 crore. The meeting, however, decided to hold more discussions with stakeholders and among committees to find effective measures to this effect.

On scrutinising the Money Loan Court Law (Amendment) Bill, the parliamentary standing committee on Law Ministry invited the members of other committee.

"We want to get rid of the culture of default loans. For this we want to ensure practical measures," Suranjit Sengupta, chief of the parliamentary body on Law Ministry, said after the meeting.

He said, "The two committees held a joint meeting for the first time in the country's parliamentary history."

Suranjit said filing cases against the loan defaulters to recover loans has become uncertain. "We want to introduce alternative dispute resolution system to resolve the problems outside of the courts and to ensure recovery of defaul loans," he said.

Therefore, on completion of discussions with the Finance Ministry and other stakeholders, the parliamentary body that scrutinised the Money Loan Court Law (Amendment) Bill will recommend for including a new provision in the bill to introduce ADR system, he added.

Suranjit said the parliamentary body on Finance Ministry will hold discussion with the stakeholders including bankers association, owners of sick industries with default loans and will come up with concrete proposals to overcome the situation.

Meanwhile, the standing committee on Finance Ministry has already formed a sub-committee to work out ways to recover the default loans, he added.

"We will invite the Finance Ministry to be present at the next joint meeting as well," Suranjit added.

He said only Tk 10,000 crore default loans have been recovered in last 19 years. "This situation cannot be allowed to go on. We want to free the nation from the loan default culture," he stressed.