Dhaka, Delhi to work together to offset Ukraine war shocks

Bangladesh and India have agreed to work together to offset the negative impacts of the Ukraine war on the regional economy, foreign minister Dr AK Abdul Momen said on Monday.
"One of our neighbouring countries is already facing a catastrophe due to the war between other countries. We do not want any other countries of the region to face a similar problem," said Dr Momen.
He was briefing journalists on his arrival at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka from New Delhi after attending the 7th Joint Consultative Commission (JCC) meeting.
Responding to a question, the minister said the JCC has failed to fix a date for the Joint River Commission (JRC) meeting, which Bangladesh has been seeking for a long time.
They have been telling us for a long time that they will give a date, but no date is given yet. We hope that they will give a date for the JRC before the visit of our prime minister, he said.
Terming the JCC very fruitful, the minister said the JCC had proposed September first week for Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's visit to New Delhi. The visit will take place during this time if the PMO approves it, he added.
In the JCC, Bangladesh requested India to lift anti-dumping restrictions on its exports to India, especially on products like Jute and floating glass.
The Indian side argued that the restriction was imposed as the Bangladesh government provides subsidies for the exports of these products, but we replied that this is not subsidy and this is export incentive, the foreign minister said.
"They said they will discuss the issue with concerned ministries."
India alleged that Indian trucks faced severe delays while loading and unloading goods on Bangladesh's land ports.
To address the issue, the meeting decided to hold joint visits by the representatives of customs departments of both the countries, Dr Momen informed.
He said that when Bangladesh raised the border killing issue, India assured in this regard and informed the meeting that recently the border-killing incident came to a zero.
The minister said that the JCC discussed extensively on joint cooperation to prevent casualties of flood through sharing data and through the early warning system.
He said that Bangladesh proposed to open up all river routes of both the countries for each other, but India is yet to give any decision in this regard.

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