Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed urged India to remove non-tariff barriers for an expanded regional trade as Bangladesh has started opening up its market to the neighbours.
He referred to the talks on establishing economic corridor between Bangladesh, China, India and Myanmar to support his call to a “friendly neighbour.”
The minister described Bangladesh's participation in corridor talks as a positive gesture towards an open market for a vibrant and bustling regional trade.
Tofail Ahmed was speaking as the chief guest at a report launching ceremony at the Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Industry conference room in Dhaka yesterday.
MCCI, Export Promotion Bureau, SME Foundation and the country's apex trade body FBCCI jointly organised the event to launch the study report on “non-tariff measures (NTMs) in South Asia: assessment and analysis.”
FBCCI President Kazi Akram Uddin Ahmad also addressed the function, also attended by senior government officials of different SAARC countries and a number of leading business figures. MCCI President Rokia Afzal Rahman moderated the event.
In their address, the speakers said different countries take non-tariff measures to prevent their local industries, but many of such measures eventually appear as barriers to entry of other countries' products, creating an uneven situation particularly in regional trade.
NTMs have, therefore, remained a concern for both exporters and importers in developing countries.
Executive Director of South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (Sanem) Dr Selim Raihan, one of three authors of the report, made a slide show presentation on the report.
In his speech, Tofail recounted several agreements signed with India during his previous term as commerce minister to remove trade barriers. “But they were not fully implemented.”
He quoted an Indian leader at that time who said: “It’s not we who run the country, it is the patriotic bureaucrats that do the job. We take decisions and the bureaucrats implement them.”
Tofail Ahmed said there is no doubt that trade barriers still exist in South Asia, which are killing trade potentials in the region. “The current trade flow is nothing significant compared to potentials,” he said.
On Japan, the minister said the leading Japanese firms have expressed their interest to invest in Bangladesh. “The government is ready to facilitate the investment.” The business leaders lamented that their business is being impeded by non-tariff measures.
The report explored how NTMs are becoming barriers for trade. The researchers talked to several public and private organisations, government offices, research organisations and trade bodies.
Four SAARC countries including Bangladesh have opened specialised desks to regularly monitor NTMs and others are expected to replicate such desks.
