Bangladesh intends to import gas and electricity from Myanmar, a senior government official said, as it looks to boost energy supplies to help spur faster economic growth. Bangladesh Foreign Secretary Mohamed Mijarul Quayes said the issue would be a focal point of two days of secretary-level bilateral talks starting in Dhaka on Tuesday.
"They will include Dhaka's plans to import natural gas and power - which Myanmar has in excess and is ready to sell - to meet our growing demand," Quayes told Reuters in an interview. "We will discuss establishing a hydroelectric plant in Myanmar to import power from there ... "We will also discuss ways to send back Myanmar Muslim refugees huddled in and outside camps in Bangladesh, who are proving to be a formidable burden on this poor and crowded country."
More than 28,000 Myanmar Rohingya Muslims have been living in two UNHCR-run camps in Bangladesh's south-eastern Cox's Bazar district.
Officials and experts have said Bangladesh needs to increase power and gas supplies from sources within and outside the country to spur development, fight poverty and push economic growth beyond a figure of around 6 percent. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's government, which took office in January vowing to address these issues, is hopeful of substantially adding power to the national grid over the coming years.
Bangladesh now produces up to 3,800 megawatts (MW) of electricity daily, leaving a shortfall of between 1,200 and 1,500 MW, energy officials said. Bangladesh has 7.2 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of proven gas and 5.5 tcf probable gas reserves, which will be exhausted over the next few years, they said. Some 250,000 Rohingya who fled across the border from Myanmar in early 1992 trying to escape alleged persecution by Yangon military junta, but majority of them had been repatriated by the UNCHCR late that year. The others refused to go back.
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