The Prime Minister of Bangladesh Urged to Pursue Duty-free India Export

The garment manufacturers have urged prime minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina to pursue duty-free access of apparels to the Indian market when her counterpart Manmohan Singh visits Dhaka.

Manmohan will fly down on a two-day visit on Sept 6 at the invitation of Hasina and is expected to sign eight to 10 protocols and memorandum of understanding during the hectic trip.

Exports to India will increase several times if Delhi allows duty- and quota-free market access of RMG products, Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers' and Exporters' Association president Shafiul Islam Mahiuddin told bdnews24.com.

As many as 480 items feature on the Indian negative list of products for Bangladesh and of those, 154 are related to RMG—78 knitwear products and 76 woven goods.

Export to India soared about 100 percent as manufacturers exported about Tk 10.77 billion worth of products in Jan-Mar period while it was only Tk 5.48 billion in the same period of the last fiscal year, according to the Bangladesh Bank statistics.

The export jumped as India allowed duty-free exports of 10 million pieces of RMG products a year from the current calendar year, Mahiuddin said. Earlier, eight million pieces enjoyed duty-free market access.

India has middleclass population of about 450 million with domestic garment market size of $30 billion, he said.

"If Bangladesh can meet 10 percent of Indian demand it will be $ 3 billion and it will help to reduce trade gap."

"Bangladeshi products are competitive and demand for our products is increasing there," he pointed out.

The geographical position of Bangladesh also facilitates trade between the countries and local exporters have the capacity to fulfill the demand of Indian consumers by supplying quality products at relatively lower prices, he added.

Private research organisation, the Centre for Policy Dialogue's executive director Mustafizur Rahman said Bangladesh economy would be immensely benefited if more of its products entered the Indian market.

"But the reality is India is not likely to give us uninterrupted market access easily."

But the government should keep pursuing India to export more than 10 million pieces with zero-duty in the coming years, he suggested.

"Not only RMG products, there are prospects for cement, home textiles, raw jute and jute goods, leather products," he added.

The Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry president A K Azad said the fact that five chief ministers of Indian states would accompany Manmohan "is a very positive signal".

"I am hopeful that new avenues of trade and investment will open during the visit of the Indian prime minister," he said.

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, Meghalaya's Mukul Sangma, Tripura's Manik Sarkar, Assam's Tarun Gogoi and Mizoram's Lal Thanhawla will be accompanying Singh.

Bangladesh had a trade gap of $2.9 billion with India in 2009-10 fiscal year as it exported $300 million worth of products while imported $3.2 billion worth of goods.