The Hindu Business Line : India-Bangladesh joint chamber launch tomorrow

India’s engagement with Bangladesh and using Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka Thailand Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) as the sole bridge for South Asia with South-East Asia would get a further impetus with the launch of the India-Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Dhaka on July 22.

Disclosing this to Business Line here on Friday, the Minister of State for Commerce, Mr Jairam Ramesh, said that though the Thailand Commerce Minister, Mr Krirk-Krai Jirapaet, recently told him in Guwahati that Thailand, Myanmar and North-East India could be a growth triangle, he said that he would go a step ahead to suggest that India, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Thailand could forge a growth quadrangle.

Mr Ramesh would be in Dhaka on July 22 on the forthcoming launch of the India-Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce & Industry by the President of Bangladesh, Dr Iajuddin Ahmed.

This chamber is being launched jointly by the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry and the Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry to provide a high-level forum for accelerating economic partnerships between the two countries.

The Advisor for Finance, Planning and Commerce of the caretaker Bangladesh Government, Dr Mirza Azizul Islam, would also be present at the inaugural ceremony.

An official release said Mr Ramesh would meet with prominent members of the business community and think-tanks, besides holding separate meetings with Dr Mira Azizul Islam and with the Adviser for Communications, Shipping, Civil Aviation and Tourism, Major General (Retd) M.A. Matin.

Adverse trade balance

Besides issues pertaining to trade and investment relations between the two countries, the issue of Bangladesh’s adverse trade balance is likely to figure in the talks. India’s exports to Bangladesh during the first 11 months of 2006-07 amounted to $1.5 billion and imports from Bangladesh were $205 million.

Dhaka has voiced concern at this widening trade deficit and was taking up with India what it deems as “unfair non-tariff barriers to its exports” to India. Mr Ramesh is likely to take up proposals forwarded by India to improving connectivity and access.

Infrastructure upgrade

Mr Ramesh took last year an initiative to develop projects to upgrade infrastructure at land customs stations along the India-Bangladesh border in West Bengal, Assam, Tripura and Meghalaya especially at Petrapole in West Bengal through which about two-thirds of bilateral trade supervenes.

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