Portsmouth, a well-known UK port town on the southern coast of England, has been formally twinned with Sylhet as its Sister City.

The official twinning trip involved members of Portsmouth City Council, the Portsmouth Bangladesh Business Association (PBBA), the University of Portsmouth, the port and other groups who paid an official visit to Bangladesh recently.
Portsmouth City Council leader, Councillor Gerald Vernon-Jackson, said: “This has long been my ambition and the newly formed PBBA has given us the perfect way to make the twinning of our two great cities really meaningful.
“We all hope it will help grow jobs and opportunities for business at home and here in Bangladesh. We must now work more closely to grow our links even further.”
The concept emerged as a result of Sylhet being the region where many of Portsmouth's around 10,000-strong Bangladeshi community have roots. The Bangladeshi community in Portsmouth is the city's largest non-white group and the vision is to use the tie-up to enhance both trade and educational links between the two countries.

The University of Portsmouth is also keen to attract students from Bangladesh to the city as well as begin an academic partnership, and already has a representative based in Sylhet.
PBBA Chair Raja Ali said: “This will further enhance the relationship between the cities and bring tremendous economic benefits from the memorandum of understandings signed with numerous chambers of commerce and business associations.”
The initiative was first unveiled in September last year and the formalities for the twinning process of Portsmouth and Sylhet have now been completed.