Japan to provide $3.41m to Bangladesh for human resource development
The grant is being utilised for scholarships for government officers, judicial service officers to higher study at universities in Japan
Japan will provide $3.41million (equivalent to 476 million Japanese Yen) to Bangladesh for a human resource development project.
Under the project, scholarships are provided for BCS officers, judicial service officers and first class officers of Bangladesh Bank to do Master's and PhD courses at various universities in Japan.
To this end, the governments of Bangladesh and Japan signed "exchange of notes" and "grant agreements" on Wednesday, reads a press release.
Sharifa Khan, secretary, Economic Relations Division (ERD), Bangladesh Ministry of Finance, while Ito Naoki, ambassador of Japan to Bangladesh, and ICHIGUCHI Tomohide, chief representative, JICA Bangladesh Office, Dhaka signed the "exchange of notes" and "grant agreements" on behalf of the respective sides.
The Economic Relations Division is implementing "The Project for Human Resource Development Scholarship (JDS)" during the period 2001-2025.
This scholarship is contributing to develop knowledge and skills acquired through higher education from Japanese universities; moreover, it is helping to develop relations between the two countries.
At present, 89 officials are pursuing Master's degrees and 12 Officials are pursuing PhD degrees in Japan. Some 383 officials have achieved a Master's degree and two officials have achieved PhD degrees from different Japanese Universities.
The Government of Japan so far spent $40.45 million (approximately 5.94 billion Japanese Yen) as grant for implementing this project for the period 2001-2022.
In addition to soft loans, Japan is also providing significant amounts of Grant Aid and Technical Assistance for different projects, including support to human resource development, socio-economic development and environment protection.
The single largest bilateral development partner of Bangladesh has also been supporting different important projects in the country under the Debt Cancellation Fund.
