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Bangladesh on Friday iterated its demand for the removal of anti-dumping duty imposed by New Delhi on Bangladesh’s jute products in 2017.
At the Bangladesh-India commerce secretary level meeting held at New Delhi, Bangladesh also asked to keep Bangladesh out of the purview of the Indian Customs (Administration of Rules of Origin under Trade Agreements) Rules, 2020.
The Bangladeshi team also demanded continued duty-free market access facility for Bangladeshi products even after the graduation of the country from least developed to developing nation in 2026, commerce ministry officials said.
At the meeting, Bangladesh once again demanded removal of non-tariff barriers and halting the implementation of new Indian customs rules, CAROTAR, for Bangladesh as the guidelines were found problematic to enhance trade and business between the two countries.
Bangladeshi delegation at the meeting was led by senior commerce secretary Tapan Kanti Ghosh while Indian counterpart was headed by commerce secretary BVR Subrahmanyam.
‘The issue of anti-dumping duty on jute products was on the top of our agenda,’ commerce ministry additional secretary Noor Md Mahbubul Haq told New Age on Saturday.
He said that they also urged India not to implement the new customs notification for Bangladesh.
Besides, the progress of joint study on Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement and reopening of Border Haats were discussed in the meeting, Mahbubul said.
According to the government officials, Bangladesh also forwarded the issues of India’s recognition of Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution’s certificate for more products.
In an official statement issued by Indian commerce ministry on Saturday said that the two countries decided to finalise joint study on Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement at the earliest and to reopen Border Haats soon which closed due to covid-19 restrictions.
According to the release, Bangladesh and India also decided to implement 24-hour operation of Integrated Check Post at Benapole-Petrapole soon.
The release said that the two countries discussed facilitation of trade between India-Bangladesh through railways and reached consensus over the use of returning empty railway wagons/containers by Bangladesh that would reduce overall logistics cost of India’s exports to Bangladesh.
The statement issued by the Indian commerce ministry, however, did not mention anything on the discussion of anti-dumping duty on jute and jute products from Bangladesh and non-tariff barriers.
It said that both sides held extensive discussion on a variety of issues of mutual interest, including development of railway infrastructure, port infrastructure, regional connectivity through Multi-Modal Transportation, harmonisation of standards, mutual recognition agreement.
The statement said that the two countries approved a detailed project proposal for developing container handling facility at Sirajganj bazaar and rail and road-based ICD at Ishwardi.
The meeting was preceded by the 14th meeting of the Joint Working Group on Trade, at the level of joint/additional secretaries of both of the country on March 2-3 in New Delhi.
It was agreed that the next meetings of the JWG and commerce secretaries would be held in Bangladesh, on mutually convenient dates.
Bangladesh is the 6th largest trade partner of India and trade volume between the two countries in the financial year 2020-2021 year was about $9.9 billion.
Of the total, Bangladesh’s export to India was $1.3 billion during the period, official data said.
(NA)
