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B’desh for experimental free trade with India

PTI - Dhaka

The Bangladesh foreign minister Mr Morshed Khan has supported the proposal for a bilateral free trade agreement with India, to help reduce the huge trade deficit against Dhaka, on an experimental basis.

The Bangladesh finance minister Mr Saifur Rahman on return here last week from a four-day visit to New Delhi, where he met his Indian counterpart Mr Jaswant Singh, proposed having a free trade arrangement with India for six months. Mr Khan said he supported Mr Saifur’s proposal for one-way free trade from Bangladesh to India for six months on trial basis before making final arrangements in this respect, the independent newspaper quoted him as saying.

“If India allows Bangladesh free trade for six months to one year, then we can assess the prospect of free trade arrangement” Mr Khan said. The foreign minister hoped “India would come forward to give us opportunity to do free trade”.

Elaborating matters on free trade, he said, “We are discussing it and would be finalised only when the two countries would agree on it” and added officials of the commerce ministry are evaluating and assessing the possibility and prospect of free trade with India. While describing Dhaka-Delhi relations as “warm”, Mr Morshed Khan said relations continue to grow and everything regarding bilateral relations between the two are moving in a “positive direction”. The foreign minister underlined that the “leadership of the two countries must work together for the greater benefit of the people of the region”.