State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid suggested this on Wednesday while addressing the virtual meeting of the Europe-based TEI-Green Energy.

The minister said: "There needs to be a common international platform for the promotion of renewable energy."

South Asia can generate solar power using the facilities in India and Afghanistan, for example, he said. "However, the grid systems need to be modernised to serve the purpose."

Also, Nasrul Hamid talked about coming up with advanced solar technologies so that the solar systems could be installed using minimum space in a densely populated country like Bangladesh where land scarcity is a major problem.

He also underscored the need for investment, experience sharing, and holding policy dialogues.

Nasrul said, "Bangladesh has been producing 722.13 MW of electricity from renewable sources while the import of hydropower from Nepal and Bhutan is under process."

"Also, we have set a target to save 20% of electricity by energy conservation."

He sought technical and financial support from the European Union to promote renewable energy across Bangladesh.

European Union representatives Dario Trombetta, Koen Everaert, Tanzina Dilshad, Chiara Vidussi, Kristin T Waeringsaasen from Royal Norway Embassy, Mahbubur Rahman and Marcus Johannesson from Swedish Embassy joined the event.

Donal Cannon from the New Delhi office of European Investment Bank, Anirban Kundu of KfW, Angelika Fleddermann and Mudabbir Anam from GIZ, Shaikh Mahmudul Ahsan of the German Embassy and Katrin Bock of EIB also took part in the programme.