India seeks permission to export industrial, agri items to BD

India has sought permission to export some of its industrial and agri items aiming to tap the growing Bangladesh market, officials said.
Bangladesh's trade deficit with India is ballooning in recent years with import continuously rising while export hitting rock bottom for barriers created in the market of the neighbouring country, they said.
As part of the move, the Indian government has requested the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) of Bangladesh through its high commission in Dhaka seeking permission to export some of its industrial and agri items through the Akhaura land customs station (LCS) recently, a MoFA official said.
"Many items like agarbati, tea, pineapple, rubber etc are produced in and around Tripura but these are not allowed to be exported to Bangladesh through the Akhaura LCS," a high commission letter said.
"Import of these items may be permitted through Akhaura LCS which would lead to lowering of the landed cost of such items in Bangladesh," the letter also mentioned.
Currently, there is a large bilateral trade gap between Bangladesh and India. Bangladesh should export more items to the Indian market to narrow the bilateral trade gap between the two neighbouring countries, insiders said.
Both the countries have common economic space, common market, common economic opportunity and common pool of resources, they said.
At present, Bangladesh is a market of 160 million people, whereas India is a market of 1.2 billion, they added.
As per official data, the year-on-year increase in the bilateral trade deficit, against Bangladesh, was 33.58 per cent or USD 1.402 billion in the fiscal year (FY) 2013-14.
The data, released by the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) and Bangladesh Bank, show that the country's trade with India marked incremental imbalances in the last couple of years.
In the last six FYs, the deficit has more than doubled-from $1.978 billion in 2006-07 to $5.579 billion in 2013-14.
According to the Indian high commission data, Bangladesh imported goods worth about US$ 6.036 billion from India in FY 2013-14 as against total exports worth $456.633 million.
It leaves an import-export gap amounting to $5.579 billion in favour of the mighty neighbour. In the previous fiscal, the gap was worth $ 4.176 billion.
In the last FY, 2014-15, Bangladesh exported goods worth about $ 527.16 million to India as against $ 456.63 million in the previous fiscal, registering a positive growth.
Some of the exporters blamed that the country cannot grab the vast Indian market due to lack of poor diplomacy.  
Bangladesh's exports face various non-tariff barriers to enter the Indian market. This disparity contributes to the widening of the trade deficit, said a businessman.
Bangladesh could not make any significant growth in exports mainly because of the non-tariff barriers and government's lack of initiative in negotiation with the counterpart on different trade-related issues even after allowing duty-free access of Bangladesh-made apparels to India, he said.
Business leaders and experts are continuously demanding that India remove non-tariff and para-tariff barriers to help Bangladesh in increasing exports to the country to reduce the galloping trade gap between the two next-door neighbours.
[email protected]