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Establishment of Indian joint ventures in Bangladesh has been mooted as a way of redressing the current imbalance in bilateral trade. The joint ventures could involve sourcing of raw materials from India and re-exporting the final product back to India. The areas identified for such joint ventures include setting up of gas based power plants in Bangladesh; setting up of fertilizer and sponge iron plants; textile and garment manufacturing units using Indian fabrics; petrochemicals; telecommunications; electronic goods; leather and leather products; gas based products; news print etc. This was indicated during discussions between Mr. M. Morshed Khan, Foreign Minister of Bangladesh and Mr. Kamal Nath when the Bangladesh Minister accompanied by leading representatives of Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce and Industry met Shri Kamal Nath here yesterday. Both the Ministers underlined the need to increase bilateral trade, in particular by removing existing infrastructure bottlenecks that hindered the growth of trade and through capacity building efforts that would help Bangladesh diversify its export basket. They stressed the great importance of increasing bilateral economic ties for mutual benefit.
It was noted that India had been progressively reducing tariffs for Bangladesh items both under SAPTA (South Asia Preferential Trade Agreement) and the Bangkok agreement. It was also mentioned that the bilateral Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Bangladesh could be pursued in parallel with the SAFTA (South Asia Free Trade Agreement) and the BIMSTEC.
In the year 2003 –04, bilateral trade between India and Bangladesh amounted to Rs.7563.93 crores. Of this, Indian exports to Bangladesh amounted to Rs 7277.94 crores and our imports from Bangladesh amounted to Rs. 285.99 crores.
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