Nurul Islam Hasib back from the project site
China has introduced robots in the Padma Bridge works to complete the much-coveted project of Bangladesh on time, lessening the impacts of the new coronavirus.
Project Director of the Chinese side Liu Jianhua said on Wednesday the virus appeared as a ‘new challenge’ for them as they kept their staff who were on holidays in Hubei Province on extended leave as part of their prevention measures.
“We have taken stringent measures so that coronavirus cannot come to Bangladesh,” he said as the Chinese embassy in Dhaka took a group of journalists to see the progress of the project which is a multipurpose road-rail bridge.
Once completed, estimates suggest the mega structure, which will link the capital with the South-West of the country, will boost Bangladesh’s GDP by 1.2 percent.
But coronavirus which is a global public health emergency appeared as a challenge since it affected mostly China.
Engr Md Kamruzzaman, deputy project director of the Padma Multipurpose Bridge project, said the Chinese company is facing shortage of wielders since they are not bringing their staff who went on leave.
“They are training up our local wielders to cover the shortage. At the same time they have brought four robotic wielder machines. Those machines have already started working,” he said, sounding optimism that they will be able to back to the normal speed after March.
Chinese Ambassador in Dhaka Ji Liming, who also spoke at the event at the main camp of the First Division of CREC Project Management Office of the Padma Bridge Rail Link Project, ruled out the possibility of any significant impact on ongoing mega projects.
“We believe that China’s large-scale production and operation activities in Bangladesh will not undergo a significant adverse impact due to the outbreak,” he said and sought Bangladesh’s support. He was critical to some of the measures the government had taken including on-arrival visa ban for Chinese.
“The hearts of Chinese people and Bangladeshi people are closely linked, the economies of two countries highly complementary,” he said.
“There are huge spaces for cooperation in trade, investment and engineering contract between China and Bangladesh. It is noticed that under the impact of the outbreak of the COVID-19, there have been some twists and turns in economic and trade cooperation between Bangladesh and China.”
For example, he said, some garment raw materials cannot be imported in time, which makes it difficult to secure orders for Bangladesh's pillar industry --garment processing and export; in some major cooperation projects between our two countries, the Chinese engineers or technicians and construction personnel could not arrive in time due to visa restrictions, which has affected the progress of the projects; also due to the newly-added inspection and quarantine measures, the logistics of related projects and the efficiency of customs clearance have been slowed down,” he said.
He demanded lifting of the on-arrival visa ban, and screening of all inbound passengers in all ports. The ambassador also said that their officials who are coming from China are going to 14 days self-quarantine so that the virus cannot come to Bangladesh in anyway.
“If China encounters difficulties in economic development, it will directly affect the economic growth of Bangladesh,” he said.
“However, we must see that Bangladesh made the choice to carry out economic and trade cooperation with China because the best choice under the market economy environment”.
“It has always been so and always will be in the future, which will not change because of the temporary outbreak of coronavirus epidemic,” the ambassador said.
“China will always be the most reliable trading partner of Bangladesh and a firm builder and implementer of major infrastructure projects for "Belt and Road" connectivity.”
“We will work hand in hand with the government of Bangladesh and all sectors of Bangladesh society to prevent the outbreak, to overcome the temporary difficulties and to serve for bilateral economic and trade cooperation.”
As part of the prevention measures in the Padma Bridge project site, the Chinese company has introduced daily reporting system regarding the conditions of the staff.
Adequate amount of thermometers and medical masks have been purchased and has been distributed to all Chinese and local employees. They also checked the temperature of the visiting journalists at the entry of the project office. A field hospital near Buriganga River has also been set up as contingency to ensure the control.
Due to the effective measures, there has been no single case of coronavirus infection among the staff of the mage project, said Wang Kun, also a Project Director.
