DHAKA, Jan 11: The Bangladesh government's much-trumpeted "look-East policy" has made no progress at all as the initiative is "limited in words, not in Reality", observed a parliamentary committee on Monday.

The parliamentary panel also advised the government to renew and strengthen relations with countries in South East Asia. The parliamentary committee of the ministry of foreign affair, at a meeting on Monday, made this observation, and asked the ministry to make diplomatic efforts to remove apparent constraints hampering closer ties with these countries, especially China, which the committee members said is a "tested friend of Bangladesh".

The lawmakers belonging to the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) told the meeting that the recent "hobnobbing" with the Taiwanese trade centre in Bangladesh might have enraged China, and that the authorities should take proper initiative to effect a reconciliation.

"We asked the authorities concerned to develop relations with China, Japan and South Korea," committee chairman Barrister Ziaur Rahman told reporters after the meeting. The Awami League lawmakers on the committee were not present at the meeting.

After taking power, the BNP-led alliance government adopted the "look-East policy" to enhance the country's trade and business. But most of the committee members found that the policy was limited to words only and, in reality, very little progress had been made.

The chairman said the country's diplomatic relations should focus mainly on trade and business, and in this perspective relations with China and Japan need to be developed to a greater degree.

The chairman said the meeting underscored the need for establishing stronger air and road communication links between China and Bangladesh. Referring to Beijing's "Kun Ming initiative"', the plan to construct a highway connecting Bangladesh and China through Myanmar, the chairman of the parliamentary committee said that the Chinese authorities were "very keen" to construct the highway. "But regretfully, there was no response from Bangladesh."