India looks to strengthen connectivity with Bangladesh

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The coronavirus pandemic has rattled the economies, nonetheless it has also brought some lessons: the world must cooperate and collaborate to develop resilient systems. Consequently thinks Indian Great Commissioner to Bangladesh Vikram Doraiswami.

"We are trying to increase our ability to shorten the global value chain. We have seen through the pandemic that the global value chain offers been heavily stressed," he said within an exceptional interview with The Daily Star just lately.

The envoy spoke about how the two countries could boost trade and connectivity and take away the barriers.

"India and Bangladesh can be found next to one another. In such a circumstance, what I am thinking about is to look at some areas to start out with where we are able to shorten the development chain and link up both countries much more closely."

According to the envoy, many people in India and Bangladesh happen to be dependent on agriculture, including fisheries, poultry, food, food grain, fruits and vegetables, but they get very little value in trade terms from value-addition.

"The raw stuff moves off, gets packaged and tinned elsewhere, and both of us lose out. The two countries can work on a number of the issues."

"Due to this fact, production chains would be far better and simpler. It would be far easier, increase income and become the main shorter value chain."

It really is another area where the two countries may cooperate. Lately, the Bimstec Startup Conclave happened where a large amount of young Bangladeshi firms participated.

"This is a thing that is uniquely fitted to both countries to cooperate due to cultural commonalities. Both countries can collaborate in the creation of OTT [over-the-top rated] contents and language-based AI [artificial intelligence]."

Bangladesh and India possess huge synergy about agriculture and IT that can be leveraged found in the post-pandemic period, he said.

He backed strengthening connection and establishing more links concerning railway, truck, surroundings, cargo, inland drinking water and coastal shipping connection.

"If a good container from Delhi calls for 50 days to attain Bangladesh via the sea route, a whole lot of its value is lost with the price of doing business found in India and the price of the merchandise in Bangladesh increasing."

"If we're able to enhance connectivity, it really is win-win."

Bangladesh, given its geography, is ideally suitable for take the best advantage of its strategic location. "Bangladesh could reimagine itself as the 21st century Singapore on a much bigger scale," he said.

A whole lot of connectivity assignments have already been finalised, and India is looking forward to them to start.

"Trials have been done. We are keen to go forward because we believe if these are done, we will be able to display on both sides that there surely is huge economic value for Bangladesh from such connectivity," Doraiswami said.

Citing an example, the envoy stated, Bangladeshi trucks, port managing services and insurance companies will be used in the transport of goods from Chattogram Port to Tripura and above.

"Bangladesh will probably benefit by giving these offerings, while India gets quicker movement of merchandise and the price is low."

The envoy says he does not know why the connectivity projects are staying delayed.

"We see there are lots of pushbacks, telling that India wishes that… so we ought to not do it. I don't understand why that should happen."

"You should see whether it benefits you or not. We want to force through negotiations to receive each one of these moving."

"We think the easy fact is the benefit is shared. If you consider it with an open up eye, almost all of the products that will probably proceed through will benefit you."

Bangladesh has exceeded $1-billion mark in twelve-monthly exports to India, but the bilateral trade is heavily tilted towards India with about $6 billion well worth of goods coming from the region. Dhaka has raised the issues of non-tariff barriers and anti-dumping duty on jute goods.

In response, Doraiswami explained the Indian side had nothing to avoid conditions that Bangladesh raised.

"Some of it comes from inadequate understanding because we'd these dialogues at higher levels -- ministerial and secretarial levels. They don't really succeed in drilling down to all the issues in details."

Now the problems are being talked about at the specialists' level and so are likely to be addressed.

"None of the issues have fundamental problems. There are several complexities about trade, including lowering systemic restrictions on the activity of goods," the great commissioner said.

India has been supplying a zero-tariff center to Bangladesh for quite some time. In many additional countries, there is usually generalised program of preferences (GSP), but not actually zero tariff, he stated.

In a zero-tariff ecosystem, if a country has a policy to create exports more competitive, it becomes a issue, he said.

"Because of our commonalities and historic ties, lots of the things that you export happen to be also similar. So, we need to be very careful to ensure that whatever we do, we have to do it in a manner that also does not create industry distortion or rebel against trade."

He said if there is a product found in India providing Bangladesh something and the vice versa, that benefits buyers and reduces the costs, it is good.

"Thinking about pay more charges for something that comes in India at one half the purchase price and similarly the various other way around? That is the basis of comparative gain in trading, and we have to do this. We simply need to have these apparent conversations. We sometimes don't possess these clear conversations."

To the envoy, it really is strange, taking into consideration the strong friendship, that the two countries possess seldom got the professionnals to come down to some of the level.

He said he was committed to doing this on all issues of both countries and discovering simple solutions within the next several months.

As Bangladesh is defined to graduate from the grouping of minimal developed countries in 2024, India and Bangladesh is in talks about signing a comprehensive monetary partnership set up for preserving Bangladesh's benefits in India and will address several other trade-related issues.

"India would like to provide zero-tariff but under a different regime," Doraiswami said.  

On the Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal Motor Vehicle Agreement, he said the connectivity is quite logical. "Bangladesh will be one of the big beneficiaries of it."

He thinks the protocol for cargo and passenger transfer should proceed. There are constraints on the amounts of automobiles, which is manageable.

"We are incredibly keen to move forward because we've lost almost a time. We are keen to move ahead with the signing of both protocols on cargo and passenger activity. We are near the agreement. We have to ensure that everybody is more comfortable with it."

Bangladesh is wanting to join the India-Myanmar-Thailand Highway Project.

The road enters Myanmar from Manipur, which is on the other hand of Tripura and undergoes Barak Valley to Myanmar and to Thailand.

"If Bangladesh is keen, India can certainly look at how it really is doable."

"If connection develops between India and Bangladesh, particularly found in the Northeast, it could hook up Bangladesh up to the job."

"If we have connectivity, Bangladeshi trucks going through Northeast and Indian trucks approaching through, then that is straightaway doable. In that case we would not need to negotiate the street guidelines that apply. We simply need to perform our homework on the bilateral part of our protocol." 
Source: https://www.thedailystar.net

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