Bangladesh President Iajuddin Ahmed to inagurate IBCCI tomorrow

Dhaka, July 21 (UNI) Bangladesh President Iajuddin Ahmed will inaugurate the newly formed India-Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce and Industry (IBCCI) here tomorrow.

Indian State Minister of Commerce Jayram Ramesh, who arrived here this evening, will attend the function as a special guest.

The forum would play a significant role to boost the trade between the two countries.

The trade gap between India and Bangladesh is enormous. Indian exports from April 2006 to February 2007 reached was at 1.5 billion dollar whereas exports from Bangladesh amounted to only 200 million dollar.

Abdul Matlub Ahmed, Chairman of Nitol Group, local agent of Indian TATA became the president of IBCC, while Indian Tata Group Resident Director Manzer Hussain took charge as the senior vice-president and Indian businessman Shyamal Ghose as the secretary general.

Mr Matlub told mediapersons that IBCCI would place a list of ten Bangladeshi products to the Indian State Minister seeking zero tariff access on priority basis at the chamber launching function. The items include garments, knitwear, melamine, sheet glass, pharmaceuticals, leather and ceramics.

''We would be able to export US 1 billion dollars to India if these products are given zero tariff access,'' said IBCCI president.

He admitted that despite Indian government announcement to give zero tariff access to 40 Bangladesh products, most of those could not be exported because of non-tariff barriers.

''The IBCCI will work out the reasons behind the non-tariff barriers and also put our suggestion to remove those,'' he added.

UNI