A two-day ninth joint working group on trade between Bangladesh and India begins today at the commerce ministry at the secretariat in the city.
The joint secretary of commerce ministry M Shahabuddin Patwary will lead the Bangladesh team while joint secretary of Indian department of commerce Shri Arvind Mehta will lead the visiting Indian delegation at the meeting.
The Indian counterpart in the joint-secretary level meeting is likely to come up with three major pending issues such as lifting ban on Hilsha fish, transit and introducing of the coast shipping between the two countries.
An official of the commerce ministry said, “Indian counterpart may raise those issues strongly while the Bangladeshi counterpart won’t be able to place any issues of their own strongly as the local exporters and manufactures had earlier failed to explain their problems on non -tariff barriers on their export to Indian.
The government had put a ban on the export of Hisla fish to India on July 31, 2012.
In May 2012 two neighboring countries inaugurated a Car Pass System in presence of the both finance ministers of the two countries at Petrapole-Benapole for easy movement of cargo vehicles to the Land Custom Station of each other’s countries.
As per the agreement, the two countries have commenced a bus service on the Dhaka-Shillong-Guwahati route. It was agreed to expeditiously conclude the Motor Vehicles Agreement for regulation of passenger and cargo traffic.
The local exporter have raised question why Bangladeshis exporters are giving the state to state import tax to the Indian state government although Indian local businessmen are giving state to state import tax only.
Agro-based industries specially Pran group have demanded accept BSTI certificate by the Indian authority and although commerce ministry official also want to know why US authority canceled shipment of Pran group export products in US market , sources said .
The local manufacturers especially Walton group has demanded the credit from Indian commercial banks to export their cheap motor cycle although they have admitted the fact they could not export to the seven sisters during last one year. In 2009, the Indian authority allowed to export Bangladeshi motor cycle in the Indian market through Agarotala and Petrapol land ports.
