Bangladesh has a good affiliation with Malaysia including all business activities.Malaysia exports palm oil to Bangladesh for meeting domestic demand.

Malaysia is rising attempts to overturn the decline pattern in exports of palm oil to Bangladesh, which has dropped drastically this year compared to 2008.

Last year, 217,264 metric tonnes of palm oil were exported to Bangladesh, but from January to October this year, the export figures stood at only 56,726 metric tonnes, worth RM137 million.

“We are stepping up efforts by hosting trade fairs and exhibitions to steer forward. We hope in the future Malaysia’s level of share in Bangladesh market, which is 30 per cent, should increase,” Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Tan Sri Bernard Dompok told the media in Dhaka Saturday.

“The potential is huge here (Bangladesh), it will only get better with increasing prosperity and requirement for oil and fats,” he said.

According to officials, the drastic drop in exports last year was due to defaults by Bangladeshi buyers as the commodity price reached an upward trend, rising as high as RM4,600 per metric tonne in March 2008.

Bangladesh, with a population of about 160 million people, imports over one million metric tones of palm oil to meet its growing domestic demand, and Malaysia had been a regular supplier.

On the other hand, of late Indonesia had also emerged as a major exporter to Bangladesh.

“There are plenty of opportunities for Malaysian private sector players to explore in Bangladesh,” Dompok said.

“Demand is increasing with tandem of economic growth and income. Current per capita consumption stands at 8.6 kg compared to the world’s average consumption of 22 kg,” he said.

He also asked the Bangladeshi government to utilise the Palm Oil Credit Payment Arrangement (POCPA), which was stopped some time ago.

The minister is in Dhaka to celebrate the opening Malaysia-Bangladesh Palm Oil Trade Fair and Seminar 2009 (POTS), jointly organised by Malaysia Palm Oil Council (MPOC) and Malaysia Palm Oil Board (MPOB).

The Bangladesh delegation to the Copenhagen talks has demanded allocation from the adaptation fund in proportion to the percentage of its population exposed to climate change.

Bangladesh has made significant progress in many sectors including food production and population control over the years but these achievements might be lost due to the impacts of climate change, the speakers told a global audience at a presentation at the Bella Center in Copenhagen.

The country has devised its strategy and action plans to battle climate change and also developed its capability. But it now needs fund to show the world how to deal with climate change through adaptation, the speakers said.

“The climate change adaptation fund has to be created by mandatory contribution of developed countries as over and above their usual overseas development assistance fund,” said state minister Hasan Mahmud, who is now leading the Bangladesh delegation, at a press conference in the afternoon.

“More or less one billion people are affected in the world due to climate change and at least 15 per cent of them live in Bangladesh,” he said.

The state minister for forest and environment said at least 70 per cent of the adaptation fund should go to the Least Developed Countries and the most vulnerable ones among the LDC groups should get priority.

Earlier, the Bangladesh delegation arranged a presentation called ‘Bangladesh: A Victim of Climate Change – Sharing Experiences with the Global Community’ where vulnerability of Bangladeshi people to climate change were presented with scientific data.

Ainun Nishat, member of the delegation, presented the facts on climate change while Mihir Kanti Majumder, secretary to the forest and environment ministry, conducted the session.

“We want to lead the world when it’s a matter of climate change adaptation,” said lawmaker Saber Hossain Chowdhury, chief of the all-party group on climate change.

“We need to show the world that we are not just victims but doing a lot to battle the climate change,” said Raja Debashish Roy, former special assistant to the chief adviser to a caretaker government.

Ainun Nishat said agriculture and eco-system depend on the climatic order in Bangladesh.

He said Bangladesh’s agricultural sector is facing many problems but the country is making preparations to fight climate change.

Bangladesh has already made its national action plan and it will be included soon in the five-year development plan, he said.

When asked how the government will manage the Multi Donor Trust Fund offered to Bangladesh by development partners on bilateral basis to fight climate change, the state minister said it is yet to be in operation.

But when it comes in operation, the government might let World Bank manage the fund for a short term as per a condition set by the development partners, he said.

Bangladesh on Sunday said it wants to secure $10 billion in investment to boost its limping energy sector and plans a series of roadshows in Britain, the United States and Singapore to woe investors.

A lack of power and gas has held back development, hampered poverty reduction and slowed overall economic growth, it said, and so an 11-member team of experts, led by the prime minister’s energy adviser, Towfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury, would seek the investment needed to turn the sector around.

Terming the trip a “road show” to drum up investment, Chowdhury told reporters before departing on Sunday that initially they would aim to attract $5 billion investment for the period until 2013, and then another $5 billion by the end of 2021.

Bangladesh’s donors and friendly governments had long insisted the impoverished Indian ocean nation of 150 million people must have a freely elected democratic government to woo investors and pursue development, especially in energy and infrastructure that are key to take the fledgling economy forward.

Bangladesh’s annual GDP growth has hovered at around 6 percent over the past decade but the officials, economists and analysts say Dhaka needs to achieve double-digit growth to combat poverty that still grips more than 40 percent of its people