Bangladesh may seek uninterrupted supply of raw cotton and some other key essential items from India at a meeting between the commerce secretaries of the two countries, officials have said.
A number of bilateral issues will be discussed at the meeting scheduled for May 17 in Dhaka.
A meeting was held at the ministry of commerce (MoC) on Tuesday last to prepare the government's position paper on the high-profile meeting with MoC senior secretary Hedayetullah Al Mamoon in the chair.
The MoC has already collected information about progress in addressing bilateral issues discussed at the last secretary-level meeting held in March, 2012 in New Delhi.
India imposed a ban on export of raw cotton to Bangladesh several times. For this, the sector faced difficulties. Besides, the country imports some key essentials, especially onion from India.
Under the circumstances, Bangladesh would seek uninterrupted supply of raw cotton and onion from the neighbouring country in future, sources said.
At the New Delhi meeting the issue of uninterrupted export of cotton by India was raised by the Bangladesh side. It was decided that an agreement between the cotton corporation of India and its counterpart in Bangladesh needed to be worked out.
The Bangladesh side emphasised that they would require uninterrupted export of at least 1.5 million bales every year, a high official of the MoC mentioned.
Recognition of certificates issued by the Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution (BSTI), motor vehicles agreement, border markets, waterways, sensitive list, land customs stations, business visa, banking issue etc are likely to be discussed in the meeting.
However, the senior secretary of the MoC declined to disclose the agenda of the upcoming meeting. "We will inform all about the decisions taken at the meeting later," he said.
About 5.3 million (53 lakh) bales of raw cotton were imported by Bangladesh in the last calendar year.
The imports from India meet about 35 to 40 per cent of the demand for raw cotton and 35 per cent come from Uzbekistan. The rest of the raw cotton is imported from South Africa and other countries.
The country's demand for raw cotton is about 5.5 million bales every year.
Bangladesh's exports to India stood at $456.2 million against import of $6,035 million in the fiscal year 2013-14.
rezamumu@gmail.com
Raw cotton import high on agenda
FE Report | Published: May 15, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
Share if you like