Maxima wraps visit lauding Bangladesh’s financial inclusion

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DHAKA, July 11, 2019 (BSS) – Visiting Dutch Queen Maxima today wrapped up her three-day visit here lauding Bangladesh’s successes in women empowerment as well as fast expansion of financial inclusion through digital services.

On her last day here, the Queen held meetings with President Abdul Hamid, the Bangladesh Bank Governor, the Post and Telecommunications Minister, high officials of finance ministry and representatives of private sector.

During the meeting with President, the Queen highly appreciated Bangladesh’s achievements in expanding digital services in financial sector in recent time.

She also lauded the incumbent government’s various development activities, specially the steps taken officially to prevent child marriage.

In the morning while meeting with leaders and high officials of the country’s private sector, especially from the BGMEA, banks and financial institutions she assured Bangladesh of extending cooperation to enhance the participation of the womenfolk in the financial services.

After the meeting BGMEA President Rubana Huq told BSS that they discussed on how to bring hundred percent RMG workers into digital transaction system through establishing such an eco-system in the RMG sector.

The Dutch Queen mentioned that if necessary initiatives could be taken to exchange technical expertise with those international institutions geared to work with digital financial services worldwide.

Maxima assured of extending cooperation in this regard and informed that she would discuss with the development partners on how to strengthen financial inclusion in Bangladesh.

Noting that some 45 lakh workers are now working in the country’s RMG sector, the Dutch Queen said apart from disbursing their salaries through online, such kind of system should have to be developed so that the workers could do online shopping and also could make other online transactions. She also assured to extend support in this regard.

Later, the Queen went to the Bangladesh Bank and held a meeting with the Central Bank Governor Fazle Kabir where she laid emphasis on ensuring financial exclusion for the country’s womenfolk.

Maxima also held a meeting with Post and Telecommunication Minister Mustafa Jabbar at secretariat here.

During the meeting, the Queen was briefed about various initiatives of Bangladesh government regarding banking through digital devices.

Later, the Queen held a meeting with a delegation of finance ministry led by finance secretary Abdur Rouf Talukdar at a city hotel here.

On Wednesday, the Queen held a meeting with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina where Maxima proposed to digitize the retail payment system in Bangladesh and assured Dhaka of giving necessary assistance to this regard.

Maxima highly praised the Prime Minister and her government as Bangladesh has witnessed huge development particularly in women empowerment under her dynamic leadership.

The Queen also held a meeting with representatives of various development partners working and visited different UNDP supported projects on Wednesday.

The Queen who is the UN Secretary-General’s Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development (UNSGSA) to Bangladesh arrived Dhaka on Tuesday on her second visit here.

Queen Maxima, since her appointment as Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development in 2009, works worldwide to make safe and affordable financial services available to all, including low-income groups and small and medium-sized enterprises.

She has been the honorary patron of the G20 Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion (GPFI) since 2011.