DHAKA: US Ambassador to Bangladesh Dan W Mozena on Wednesday said “Bangladesh is a land where miraculous things happen”.

Mozena came up with the assertion in his Welcome Remarks while addressing the first ever Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) Investor Forum, a public-private partnership, at Westin Hotel in city.

Mozena said, “Today we launch the first ever Sustainable Energy for All investor Forum. We launch a public-private partnership that will tomorrow bring together entrepreneurs and investors in a fashion that has no precedent. Indeed, we today are making great history.”

He highly lauded the achievements of Bangladesh in exporting apparels and said the country “could be a major global player in exporting generic pharmaceuticals, shoes, finished leather goods, frozen shrimp and fish, small freighters, software development, semi-conductor development, flowers, bone china, jute products, silk products.”

The US ambassador further said, “This is not some pandering vision of a wishful ambassador. Rather this vision of Bangladesh as the next economic tiger, the Royal Bengal Tiger, strutting across the global economic stage as a new economic power, is based on the reality.”

“Some may think that my vision is one of miracles. Not so. Bangladesh is a land where miraculous things happen, but not by miracle, but rather as the product of the wondrous Bangladeshi people, who are so hard working, creative, entrepreneurial and resilient. These people are accustomed to building miracles,” Mozena added.

He also lauded the achievements in agricultural revolution, health revolution, in implementing a voluntary family planning program and lauded the Bangladesh’s vision to be “a middle-income” country “where all will have the means to provide their families safe housing, ample, nutritious food, good healthcare and quality education”.

“Bangladesh will need to overcome great challenges to become an economic tiger. One of these challenges is energy, rather lack of sufficient energy and that is where this SE4ALL Investor Forum comes in,” he added.

Mozena further said, “This Forum is not yet another talk shop of high-sounding chatter. Rather, this Forum is about doing something, effecting great change, specifically addressing meaningfully Bangladesh’s energy challenge.”

He added that the SE4ALL forum will increase the people’s access to energy, by expanding the nation’s supply of renewable energy, by improving energy efficiency, by introducing clean cooking fuels.

Chief Operating Officer of the SE4ALL Mohinder Gulati, Additional Secretary of the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Tapos Kumar Roy, Deputy Assistant Secretary of US for Energy Affairs Robert Ichord, World Bank Country Director for Bangladesh and Nepal Johannes Zutt, ADB Country Director Higuchi Kazuhiko and German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development Dr. Wolfram Klein, among others, were present in the function.

BDST: 1753 HRS, OCT 29, 2014