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Bangladesh & India agree to remove bottlenecks to expand trade

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December 22, 2000 

Calcutta-- (UNB)- Bangladesh and India agreed to work together for removing bottlenecks to expansion of trade between the two next-door neighbours.

The agreement was reached in a meeting between Bangladesh Commerce Minister Abdul Jalil and India’s Union Minister of State for Trade Omar Abdullah, both here to attend a trade infrastructure summit, organised by the joint chamber of the two countries.

The Bangladesh Minister pointed to the tariff and other non-tariff barriers restricting entry of Bangladesh’s goods into Indian market and sought the Indian minister’s personal help in lowering those trade walls.

He also reminded the Indian minister of their previous commitment to give market access to 25-category Bangladeshi items.

The Indian minister stressed the importance of the meeting of joint experts group for boosting bilateral trade. He felt the two sides should work together to implement the decisions taken on several occasions to facilitate trade.

“Indian government is very much sincere in resolving the issues which are still not addressed,” Omar Abdullah said.

Both the ministers have been here as trade ministers and business leaders here started a joint trade infrastructure summit, organised by Bangladesh India Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BICCI).

West Bengal Trade and Industries Minister Bansagopal Chowdhury, BICCI co-chairman Abdul Awal Minto and another co- chairman, GP Goenka, Bangladesh High Commissioner to India Mostafa Faruk Mohammad and Indian High Commissioner to Dhaka Monilal Tripathi also addressed the summit meet.

Jalil requested India to improve physical infrastructure to facilitate more trade on land routes and reminded the next-door neighbour of its commitment to allow market access to 25 categories of Bangladeshi goods.

The Bangladesh Commerce Minister identified infrastructure weakness a major bottleneck in expansion of bilateral trade through land customs, most feasible routes since the two countries have a long border, stretching over 4,000 kilometres.

“Unfortunately, communications network of most of these land routes is very shabby,” the minister noted, urging Indian government to improve road links with Petrapole checkpost in India.

Referring to the huge trade deficit between the two countries, which is roughly US$ 1 billion, the Bangladesh Minister said such a scenario is a matter of great concern for any country.

Materialising the previous commitment of giving non-reciprocal market access to 25-category Bangladeshi items and withdrawing all tariff, non-tariff and para-tariff barriers on export from Bangladesh could help reduce the trade gap, Jalil said.

There is no alternative to joint ventures, he observed, since both the countries are signatories to the SAPTA agreement. Besides state-level developments, private sectors of the both countries should also take up pragmatic steps.

Apart from government and private sector experts, some 100 leading businesspeople, industrialists, entrepreneurs and investors are taking part in the business summit that will have three technical sessions on river and air transportation, non-physical infrastructure and road and railway links.

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