Prof Yunus urges businessmen to help build new Bangladesh

Chief Advisor Professor Dr Muhammad Yunus today urged the businessmen to work together with the interim government to help build a new Bangladesh as dreamt by students.

“The student-people uprising has brought an opportunity to build a new Bangladesh. We want to create a new fresh Bangladesh from the rotten one of the past. Let us work together to this end,” he told a business dialogue here.

International Chamber of Commerce, Bangladesh (ICCB) and 15 other business bodies arranged the national business dialogue at Hotel Intercontinental in the capital.

The chief adviser said it is not a fiction at all as he firmly believes that it will be possible to build a new Bangladesh if all come forward to achieve the goal.

Expressing his hope that it is quite possible to build new Bangladesh as dreamt by the youth if all works together, the 2006 Nobel laureate said: "Businessmen are the proof that we can do great things. You have become entrepreneurs with great courage.”

He said they (businessmen) have become industrialists overcoming all odds and they have managed to do it as they are world class entrepreneurs.

“You will be able to build a new Bangladesh by utilising the opportunities that the youth have brought through a mass uprising,” Prof Yunus said.

He said the opportunities that the youth have brought in exchange of their bloods will not come before the nation time and again.

“The new dream that they have awakened in your mind, if that dream is reflected in your life, you will also be a part of fulfilling that dream,” the chief adviser said.

He said the 17 crore people of Bangladesh know each other and they are connected with each other. There is no country in the world that people are so close to each other, he added.

“This mutual bond is our greatest strength that can help us fulfill our dreams,” Prof Yunus said.

Reiterating the commitment to building a new Bangladesh, he said as long as they stay in the government, they want to work together for the betterment of the nation.

He said the commitment of the interim government is to do everything for the new Bangladesh so that they can say this country gave them an opportunity and they utilised it.

Mentioning that the student-led revolution against dictator was not a conventional movement, the chief adviser said it was not an ordinary one.

Many of those, who embraced martyrdom during the student-people movement came out of the house with a final farewell, he said, adding that they made up their minds that they were ready to sacrifice their lives for which they took to the streets.

Prof Yunus said the student and people joined the movement were determined to achieving their goals to build a new Bangladesh free from all sorts of discrimination.