Business Desk :
The ninth round of India-Bangladesh trade talks begins in Dhaka today (Wednesday) to review the current status of bilateral trade and discuss measures to improve trade ties further.
India’s Joint Secretary Foreign Trade (South Asia) Arvind Mehta and Bangladesh Joint Secretary in the Commerce Ministry, Md Shahabuddin Patwary, would lead their respective sides in the two-day meeting to be held under a Joint Working Group.
The working group that deals with issues of border infrastructure, trade facilitation, identification and removal of trade barriers was established under the framework of the bilateral Trade Agreement.
The bilateral trade between the two countries was $ 5.34 billion in the last fiscal with $ 4.2 billion Indian exports.
India had announced duty-free access to all Bangladeshi products except 25 in 2011.
Since then, Bangladesh’s exports to India rose to $563 million in the last fiscal year from $498 million in 2011.
The Indian High Commission in Dhaka said the two sides are expected to review the current status of bilateral trade and discuss measures to improve border infrastructure for trade, trade facilitation by information exchange, upgrading of testing facilities and removal of trade bottlenecks.
The eighth meeting of the Joint Working Group was held in New Delhi in June last year.
UNB adds: Bangladesh and India will discuss some specific issues over the management of hilsa and other trans-boundary species at the first meeting of the Joint Working Group (JWG) on fisheries cooperation, beginning here on Wednesday.
The two-day meeting will also discuss issues related to collaborative research programmes in the field of aquaculture and fisheries resource management, exchange of visits and skill development of the relevant personnel.
Joint Secretary (Fisheries), Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries, Ministry of Agriculture, India Dr Raja Sekhar Vundru will lead the Indian side while Joint Secretary, Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock M Anisur Rahman will lead the home side to the two-day meeting, said an Indian High Commission media release on Tuesday.
The JWG on fisheries cooperation was formed for coordinating and monitoring the activities envisaged in the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Cooperation in the Field of Fisheries’ which was signed during the visit of Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to Dhaka in September, 2011.
