Tofail urges India to remove trade barriers
Non-tariff barriers are the key problems for boosting Bangladesh’s export in the South Asian countries despite having duty- and quota-free access facility, a minister and business leaders said.
The barriers will continue to hinder the country’s export growth in the region in future unless effective and integrated efforts are taken to remove the problems, they said while speaking at a report publishing ceremony organised by the Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Dhaka on Wednesday.
Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry president Kazi Akram Uddin Ahmed said, ‘In exporting our products to India, our businesspeople have to face various problems.’
‘Our goods reach to the Indian land ports but there are no warehouses to keep the products. As a result the quality of the products deteriorates,’ he said.
Transportation and accreditation are the other problems which are creating serious problem in exporting products to the neighbouring country, he said.
MCCI vice-president Kamran T Rahman said that Bangladesh was facing various problems in exporting products in the Asian countries including India due to various non-tariff measures.
‘We have raised the problems in various occasions when we held meeting with the high authorities of the Indian government including ministers, but the problems are yet to be resolved,’ he said.
Mentioning accreditation problem as one of the non-tariff measures, MCCI member Saiful Islam said, ‘We should come up with a suggestion that can be helpful to solve the problem.’
Mutual recognition agreement could be a solution in this regard, he said.
Commerce minister Tofail Ahmed said that as per the World Trade Organisation’s rules there should not be any non-tariff measures.
‘But we are facing the problems for long,’ he said.
He urged India to come forward in addressing the non-tariff barriers as Bangladesh is also opening up its market through regional connectivity.
‘We’re well-connected with India. When we talk about economic corridor consisting of Bangladesh China, India and Myanmar (BCIM), it means we would like to open our economy,’ he said urging India to come forward too in opening up their market.
Tofail Ahmed said there had been many agreements with India to remove trade barriers during his tenure in the past as commerce minister but those were not fully implemented.
MCCI president Rokia Afzal Rahman said that NTM desks had already been established in four countries — Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan and the same short of desk would be established in other SAARC countries.
The NTM desks will establish a sustainable mechanism for regular monitoring and use the information as the basis for policy advocacy for removing and reducing the non-tariff trade barriers in the region, the MCCI president said.
Selim Raihan of South Asian Network on Economic Modelling presented the report on ‘NTM in South Asia: Assessment and Analysis’.
‘We, during the study, found that
despite having full capacity to meet demand of a certain product by a country in the SAARC region, it has not become possible to export the product in the country due to NTMs or NTBs.’
Speaking about the accreditation of a certain product, Selim said that a mutual recognition agreement could be beneficial in reducing NTMs, while in absence of MRAs, any quality related issue may be resolved by mutual cooperation programmes without restricting trade.
He also said that each SAARC country might expedite and prioritise introduction of increased automation of their customs clearance procedure under the harmonised ASYCODA system.
-With New Age input