Bangladesh and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in Bahrain on the sidelines of the Manama Dialogue.

Under this MoU, both sides will hold regular consultations for political, economic, cultural, people-to-people contact, climate change, agriculture, food security, and environmental protection cooperation.

Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen and GCC Secretary General Nayef Falah Al-Hajraf signed the MoU on Friday, reads an official press release issued in this regard.

Before that, the foreign minister and the GCC secretary general had a meeting.

At the meeting, Ambassador Mashfee Binte Shams, secretary (east) of the foreign ministry, Bangladesh Ambassador to Bahrain Md Nazrul Islam and concerned officials of Bangladesh and GCC were present.

The secretary-general thanked the foreign minister for his invitation to visit Bangladesh. He expressed his willingness to visit Bangladesh at his convenient time.

He said the MoU would work as the legal framework for cooperation between Bangladesh and GCC through a joint action plan, working group and technical team, joint business council, and forums of GCC with Bangladesh.

The foreign minister emphasized that Bangladesh and GCC have a lot of scopes to work together for skill development, food security, energy security, climate change, crisis management, peace management, afforestation and IT cooperation, and preferential trade agreement or free trade agreement.