Greek Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis on Tuesday said that opening a diplomatic mission in Dhaka is a priority for the Greek government.

He gave the assurance to Bangladesh foreign minister Dr Hasan Mahmud at a bilateral meeting held at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center in Athens on the sidelines of the 9th Our Ocean Conference.

During the meeting, the Greek foreign minister cordially accepted the invitation of his Bangladesh counterpart to visit Dhaka and mentioned that the tour would be a good option to inaugurate the Greek Diplomatic Mission there.

Both the ministers vowed to forge bilateral cooperation between Bangladesh and Greece in different areas including migration and mobility, trade and investment, shipping, manpower and recruitment, development of renewable and alternative energy infrastructure. 

Hasan requested Gerapetritis to encourage Greek businesses to import state of the art quality Bangladeshi items and urged him to facilitate the exports from Bangladesh. 

The Greek foreign minister agreed on the need to enhance bilateral trade where there remains huge untapped potentials and stressed on the need to find a suitable strategy to help grow bilateral trade and investment. 

Hasan thanked the Greek government for legalizing more than 10,000 Bangladeshi nationals who were living in Greece under the MOU on Migration and Mobility and called for smooth implementation of the second part of the MOU.

The Greek foreign minister assured that his country will recruit a good number of Bangladeshi workers for its agriculture, tourism and hospitality and construction sector in the coming days.

Besides, two ministers agreed to build the legal framework for fruitful cooperation in the shipping sector between the two countries.

Later, foreign minister Dr Hasan had a discussion session with Spanish Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenges Maria Jesus Montero on the sidelines of the conference. 

Both sides agreed to establish cooperation in climate change, water management, food and agriculture cooperation, green energy, environmental sectors and issues of mutual interest.