The Hindu Business Line : Task force to promote trade between Tripura and Bangladesh set up

Making the announcement, the Tripura Chief Minister, Mr Manik Sarkar, said Bangladesh should be the focus country of the Union Government’s Look East Policy. “We’ve been insisting on it for quite some time and have made our position clear in this regard to the Union Government on various occasions,” Mr Sarkar said, while addressing a meeting of the representatives of trade and industry from Bangladesh and Tripura.

The eight-member task force will have four representatives from each side.

Tripura will be represented by its Chief Secretary, Principal Secretary in charge of Commerce & Industry, the President of the Tripura Chamber of Commerce and CII’s north-east council chairman. Bangladesh will be represented by one member each from the Federation of Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Indo-Bangla Chamber of Commerce, Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and the local Visa Officer of the Bangladesh Government.

Various issues, critical for promotion of trade with Bangladesh through Tripura, were discussed at the meeting.

The representatives of chambers of commerce from Bangladesh present at the meeting indicated that any arrangement pertaining to trade promotion should be mutually beneficial.

It should be possible to use Bangladesh for transporting goods from India’s mainland to North-East by way of re-export.

“It should be entrepot trade with value addition at Bangladesh,” it was indicated. “The value addition could be five to 10 per cent”.

Due to geographical proximity, Tripura, the Chief Minister pointed out, would be ideally suited for Bangladeshi investors planning to invest in India. Representatives from Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce wanted to know if land would be available easily in Tripura.

“All these issues could be reviewed by the joint task force for concrete suggestions,” the Chief Minister observed.

Later, talking to newspersons, the Chief Minister said there were certain issues in bilateral trade which could not be sorted at the State-level as the approval of the Union Government would be needed.

Similarly, the representatives of different chambers of commerce present at the meeting could not take decisions on matters requiring approvals of their government. This was the first trade delegation from Bangladesh to India after the new government came to power in that country.

The delegation from Bangladesh is also attending the industrial and trade fair being inaugurated here on Wednesday.

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