Home ›› 02 Dec 2021 ›› Front
India’s pledges made after Bangladesh’s independence to restructure the latter’s economy and build capacity had not been implemented even after 50 years, Centre for Policy Dialogue Chairman Professor Rehman Sobhan said on Wednesday.
“India pledged to invest in the restructuring and capacity building of Bangladesh’s economy when Pakistani businessmen left after 1972. But no progress has yet been made in materialising those promises as they remain in discussions only,” he told a virtual dialogue titled “50 Years of Bangladesh-India Partnership: Towards a Journey in the Next 50 Years”.
He said Bangladesh had proposed that India invest in structural transformation and water sharing during the first bilateral trade talks in 1972.
Later in 1974, during a meeting between Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the then Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi, India said its investors would help Bangladesh with restructuring and capacity building, he further said.
“But the initiatives have not materialised, and those have been under negotiations for the last 50 years, he added.
Economists and policymakers at the programme emphasised removing non-tariff barriers to improve bilateral trade and reap the benefits.
“The Bangladesh-India relation is now complex, sensitive, and historic. Bilateral trade grew in the last five years as India offered us duty-free market access,” said State Minister for Foreign Affairs Shahriar Alam.
But non-tariff and para-tariff barriers were hindering bilateral trade and effective measures were needed to remove those, he said.
He also said these steps were very important not only for the development of Bangladesh but also the sub-continent.
“Bilateral trade is improving but not at the expected level. There are many non-tariff barriers, and those need to be addressed quickly to reap the benefits of duty-free market access,” said Selim Raihan, executive director of South Asian Network on Economic Modeling.
He said Indian investors could take advantage of duty-free market access by investing here to grab their domestic market as Bangladesh offers vast opportunities.
Bangladesh holds a very small position in India in terms of trade, and investors could take advantage of this, said the economist.
He added that Bangladesh had offered economic zones for Indian investors, but there was no visible progress in this regard.
“Bangladesh has become a fast-growing economy within a short period,” said Prabir De, a professor at Research and Information System for Developing Countries in India.
The Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement could create new opportunities in improving bilateral trade, he added.
“The Bangladesh-India bilateral trade is in a good shape, and both countries are enjoying benefits. It is not true that one is getting benefits while the other is being deprived of,” said Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh Vikram K Doraiswami.
“I understand the non-tariff barriers, but we need empirical evidence to resolve those,” he said.
He said there are fundamental problems in non-tariff barriers and those are mainly logistic.
“We have worked a lot to ease immigration clearance at customs points. Bangladesh needs to work further to improve the system,” he further said.
The ambassador also emphasised strengthening rail connectivity to improve bilateral trade.
“India is working on developing railways,” he added.
