After serving as the ambassador of Denmark to Bangladesh for five years, Winnie Estrup Petersen is preparing to embark on her new journey. In an exclusive interview with The Business Standard’s Executive Editor Sharier Khan, she candidly discusses a wide range of issues including her enriching experience in Bangladesh, the potential for deeper collaboration between the two nations, and offers her insights into the political climate of Bangladesh.

You have been in Dhaka for five years, which is a considerable duration for an ambassador. What kind of transformation have you witnessed in Bangladesh during your stay here? 

Five years is a long time. I’ve seen changes in so many areas. I mean, we can just look out the window here and see the level of building and infrastructure changes in Bangladesh, which are taking place on a daily basis, all over the country.

We have seen changes in the business environment. The government has made a great effort to improve the business environment. We can maybe come back to that, but we also have poverty reduction.

We also had Covid-19, which was a major setback globally and for Bangladesh. Bangladesh has recovered very well. Of course, we have a new crisis in the form of the Russian aggression in Ukraine, which has global implications for Bangladesh, but Bangladesh is very resilient. And I trust and believe that this country will go forward.

The other day, we saw the news that Bangladesh was invited to join a coalition with Denmark and Costa Rica. It’s about getting rid of oil and gas-based energy. Can you please tell us more about this coalition?

It’s called BOGA: Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance, which Denmark and Costa Rica have started, and we have invited Bangladesh to join. It’s part of the efforts to minimise carbon emissions. 

There are losses due to this phenomenon every year so it’s high time we reduced emissions.

In that light, Denmark is very advanced when it comes to renewable energy. It generates a lot of wind power and other sustainable types of energy. Can you shed some light on that? Additionally, two Danish entities have expressed interest in investing $1.3 billion to develop offshore windmills to generate power. Can you please tell us a little more about that? Is it different from other wind technologies?

I think it’s not different, but Denmark is a front-runner. We were the first country to really invest massively in wind energy. In Copenhagen, you will see a windmill park just outside the airport. The huge one on the shore, of course, is a measure of electricity generated by wind. I think it varies according to the wind, but it’s a significant proportion, up to half of our daily use, and there were days when almost all our energy came from the wind. 

These two companies, the Copenhagen Offshore Partners Club and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partnership, have been visiting Bangladesh over the past years to do their first due diligence. Now they’re ready to come up with a proposal. 

The Danish entities are keen to invest $1.3 billion; it’s a lot of money and a very novel thing. And I see this as a future for Bangladesh because it’s offshore.

If this goes on positively, will there be more such initiatives from Denmark? 

This could be the beginning of several phases of the first 500MW. But if that is successful and the government so wishes, there will be many more. 

You know a lot of readymade garments are exported to Denmark. What other sectors can Bangladesh explore in Denmark? 

I recently discovered, to my surprise, that Denmark is Bangladesh’s sixth-largest export destination for IT services. It’s remarkable that even as a small country, like Denmark, we are still the sixth largest. So, I see a lot of potential. 

Food items are also being exported, and we believe food and agriculture have a good future. Just in June, a delegation of eight big Danish companies came here for three days of exploring the market and exploring partners in food and agro. We are also setting up support for the government when it comes to food safety and compliance within the food sector. I think this could be a future sector of expansion in our bilateral relations.

Talking about this LDC graduation, you see that when this starts for Bangladesh, we’ll definitely, for the first few years, need a special kind of agreement as our businessmen say, or else we will suddenly lose the market. Is there any bilateral discussion between Denmark and Bangladesh to have some kind of agreement for RMG and other sectors?

Denmark is a member of the EU, therefore, we are part of EU instruments when it comes to everything but arms. We’re not in a position where we can negotiate bilateral agreements or trade agreements.

When it comes to GSP Plus, Bangladesh will need to work on getting that and the partnership agreement, maybe with the EU, including Denmark.  But, the GSP Plus requires, among other things, that the country complies with a number of UN conventions on human rights, labour rights, the environment, combating corruption, etc. 

So, that would be very important for the government going forward to make sure compliance with these resolutions.

How can Bangladesh secure more Danish investments?

First and foremost, improving the business climate is something the government has done a lot over the past few years. There’s still a long way to go to level the playing field between international and local companies. 

And generally, improve the business environment. For instance, one of the elements of a good business environment is contract enforcement. There are many cases hanging in the court system. So, that’s just one example of what needs to be done. 

Danish companies like predictability. They are very compliant, but they need to know the rules of the game, and we have more than 50 Danish companies engaging with Bangladesh, which is a huge number for a small country. We could have many more if the business environment was more favourable.

In which areas would they be interested in Bangladesh?

I think food is one. We have companies in the RMG sector looking to move productions from China to Bangladesh, which we also like. One of the companies is producing water pumps, which could also be done here. And there are many in almost all sectors.

Even very developed countries need manpower, especially in certain sectors. Does Denmark have this kind of opportunity to import manpower from Bangladesh? 

Right now, very few. But like many European countries, we are an ageing nation. So, we’ll see what the future brings.

Is there something special for students in Denmark? What are the study opportunities there? Are they good?

I believe so. I haven’t talked to them, but we can see every year we get more and more applications for student residents. There is something making them choose Denmark out of all the countries of the world, right? 

And you know, students who are completing their studies in Denmark are allowed to stay if they get a job after that. So, that’s also maybe one way that immigration is something that is not very visible and that we cannot really make statistics about that.

Recently, Bangladesh and Denmark signed a bilateral development programme. One of the strategic objectives of this agreement is to strengthen democracy. So, which part of democracy do you think Bangladesh needs to strengthen? 

Democracy is a process that continues to try to improve. And, I would say that there’s no perfect democracy in this world. So, what we want to do is accompany Bangladesh in its stride to put in place democracy formally. We have done that through support for civil society, women’s rights, human rights, different activities, accountability, etcetera. 

We cannot put democracy in place in Bangladesh. This is for Bangladesh to do, and we can only be there to facilitate dialogues and try to help….

I’m actually speaking from the perspective of the recent developments where the US has imposed some restrictions in case the election is not free and fair. An EU team is here and there had been other representatives from different countries talking about the election and the democratic process. You know there has been some criticism. So in that light, how would you say your country is looking at this democracy?

Well, first of all, Denmark is part of the Schengen visa and EU. Ours is a small country. It’s very important for us to act multilaterally in the multilateral forums that we have. You mentioned the EU election observation delegation. They are here as a first kind of study to determine whether this would be feasible and advisable.

To my knowledge, Schengen Visa Corporation, which expands beyond the EU, has no plans to put in place any particular thing.

Did you yourself, your embassy, engage in any dialogue with political parties to fathom the situation?

Oh, that is called diplomatic work to speak to all walks of life in Bangladesh, rich and poor, the ruling party, the opposition party, media, and civil society. That’s what we do all the time.

Do you have any concerns about rights issues in Bangladesh, for instance, trade union rights? There are certain things we often hear Western countries talk about. Do you think we are headed in the right direction with trade unions and other rights?

Well, Denmark is also part of an informal EU initiative. We call it the EU Team Europe initiative here. All the EU countries are working within the decent work agenda, so we are actually very active there. You know, trade unions have been a very positive factor in Danish society for a long time and are so essential in building what we call the Nordic model.

What we’re doing in Team Europe is to support the government’s action plan to enhance the decent work agenda in the country. Rather than imposing our ideas, we provide financial and moral support while engaging in a constructive dialogue to advance this agenda in Bangladesh.

I’ll just give you an open floor to talk about Bangladesh

I have so many things to say. My five years in Bangladesh have been a wonderful time. I have really appreciated this country and its people – so warm, hospitable, and dynamic. You would never look out the window and not see someone who was going somewhere because they needed to do something. That’s the basis, the foundation, for this country and its amazing development journey both socially and economically over the past 50 years.

Is there any other initiative from the Danish government, for instance, in education that we don’t know about? Is there any other agreement that Bangladesh and Denmark are working on?

We are not in education or health.  In April last year, our two governments signed a framework agreement for a green climate partnership between the two countries. The Danish minister for global climate and development corporation visited Bangladesh in June last year. And together with the minister for environment, forest, and climate in Bangladesh, they launched a new action plan for how we’ll partner on this using all the instruments we have, like diplomacy, doing things together on the international scene, within trade, and development. So, that would be a very exciting instrument as a basis for our bilateral relations as we go forward.