NE projected as Indo-Bangla trade corridor

Guwahati, Mar 21 (UNI) North Eastern states would work as trade corridor to boost trade between India and Bangladesh, doing away with various political and economic policies which acted as impediments for all these years.

A proposal to this effect was put forward by Shahab Enam Khan, Lecturer in International Relations at Jahangirnagar University of Bangladesh and Senior Research Fellow at Bangladesh Enterprise Institute (BEI) at a seminar in the city recently.

Mr Khan said, ''Bangladesh would serve both as a source of raw material supply to NE and a market for its products. However, there is a need for better connectivity between Bangladesh and North East India.'' He was presenting a paper on 'Re-engineering Bangladesh-India Trade: Resolving NTBs to Facilitate and Improve Trade and Investment' at the seminar on 'Role of Connectivity and Visa in Facilitating Trade between Bangladesh and North East India', organised by South Asia Enterprise Development Facility.

In the recent years, India's import to Bangladesh had seen a steady increase but Bangladesh's exports to the country remained almost sNew Delhi, Mar 21 (UNI)tagnant.

As Mr Khan had mentioned in his paper in 2004, India's officially recorded exports to Bangladesh were about 1.7 billion dollars but its imports from Bangladesh were worth 78 million dollars.

Since 1996-97, Indian exports to Bangladesh (in nominal US dollars) had been growing at 9.1 per cent annually, slightly above the general rate of growth of its total merchandise exports (8.4 per cent). But India's imports from Bangladesh over the same period had grown on an average at 3 per cent annually, compared to average growth of its total imports of 9.2 per cent.

For India, trade with Bangladesh accounts for just over one per cent of its total trade since mid-1990s and currently about 3 per cent of its total exports and 0.01 per cent of its total imports.

For Bangladesh, however, India was the second largest source of its imports, only behind China in 2006.

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