while addressing a Session on “Border Trade: Infrastructure bottlenecks, trade barriers and untapped opportunities” at India-Bangladesh Business Conclave, jointly organised by Indian Chamber of Commerce and India-Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce and Industry (IBCCI) on 24 August 2014.
Published in New Age on Monday, 25 August 2014. View more news on the topic.
Businesses want India non-tariff barriers to go for trade gap cuts
Indian minister claims Bangladesh exporters fail to understand their market
Staff Correspondent
Business leaders and experts on Sunday demanded that India should remove non-tariff and para-tariff barriers to help Bangladesh in increasing exports to the country to reduce the trade gap between the two neighbours.
At the Bangladesh-India business conclave jointly organised by Indian Chamber of Commerce and India-Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Dhaka, they identified some bottlenecks including testing and certification, packaging and labeling problems that hampered business with India.
In most cases, India does not recognise certification of Bangladesh Standard and Testing Institution that created hindrance in exports to the country, they said.
Despite duty-free and quota-free facility for Bangladeshi products in Indian market, Bangladeshi exporters cannot penetrate the market due to these barriers, they said.
It is also important to ease the way of doing business through changing mindset and reducing paper-based works, they said.
At the meeting, government officials and business people of Bangladesh and India also stressed on expediting multimodal connectivity, improving infrastructure at land ports along with removal of non-tariff barriers and increasing investment to enhance bilateral trade between the two countries.
Indian state minister for external affairs and for development of north eastern region V K Singh led a delegation that includes Meghalaya chief minister Mukul Sangma, Tripura commerce and industry minister Tapan Chakraborty attending the meeting.
The Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry president Kazi Akram Uddin Ahmed said that Bangladeshi exporters cannot easily penetrate the Indian market because of some non-tariff and para-tariff barriers including certification and quality testing requirements.
India should remove the barriers to reduce trade gap between the two countries, he said.
The Bangladesh trade gap with India hovers around $5 billion a year as India imports goods worth only around $450 million against the export of over $5.5 billion.
Inaugurating the conclave, V K Singh said that Indian government was committed to ensure prospects of neighboring countries for mutual benefits as it believes that Indian prosperity lies in neighbours’ prosperity.
‘So, there is a climate and political will to engage neighbours to explore untapped opportunities and Bangladeshi businesses can utilise it,’ he said.
He said that despite getting duty-free and quota-free access in Indian market, Bangladeshi exporters could not fully exploit the opportunity as they failed to understand the Indian market.
‘So, business community needs to understand the Indian market,’ he said.
Prime minister’s economic adviser Mashiur Rahman said that both the countries should institutionalise the multimodal transit agreement.
He said that both the countries should move with a cooperative approach coming out from the conventional diplomatic frame to increase mutual confidence and understanding.
Mukul Sangma invited Bangladesh for making joint investments in thermal power projects and agro-forest sectors in Meghalaya.
Meghalaya has also huge potential in hydro-electricity and Bangladesh can get electricity through making investment, he said.
Terming non-recognition of Bangladesh Standard and Testing Institution’s certificates in India a great barrier to bilateral trade, Centre for Policy Dialogue executive director Mustafizur Rahman recommended for mutual recognition of certificates by BSTI and Indian testing authority.
He said that economic interest of the two countries should not be hostage of political boundary.
IBCCI founder president Abdul Matlub Ahmed said that Bangladesh would not be able to reduce trade imbalance with India only through increasing exports as its export basket is limited.
Bangladesh should attract more Indian investment and Indian investors will produce their products in Bangladesh and export to India that will help in reducing trade imbalance, he said.
PRAN RFL Group marketing director Tanveer Islam said that India should solve certification issues and border should be open for 24 hours for trade.
Tapan Chakraborty requested the governments to make full operation of Ashuganj port for multimodal connectivity to allow Tripura to use Chittagong port and expedite establishment of Akhaura-Agartala rail link.
Former foreign minister Dipu Moni, Meghalaya principal secretary PW Ingty, Tripura industries and commerce secretary M Nagaraju, Indian high commissioner to Bangladesh Pankaj Saran, World Bank lead economist Salman Zaidi, ICC, India president Roopen Roy, IBCCI president Mohammad Ali, among others, spoke at the conclave.