Bangladesh-India Trade Imbalance: A Perspective
Asadul Islam
University of Saskatchewan, Canada

Bangladesh and Indian commerce secretary level talk are going to take place in New Delhi on 24th and 25th of this month regarding bilateral trade. Bangladesh is concerned, for quite a long time, is its persistent and unfavorable trade deficit with India. The Bangladesh's trade deficit ballooned to about a billion in recent years(971.52 million dollar in 2001-02) from $53.3m in 1985.Bangladesh has been pushing India to narrow down the huge trade imbalance and so expecting greater market access to India of its products. In this context Bangladesh has requested to India, in different levels, for tariff exemptions on 191 items, of which India agreed to 40. But the duty-free access to 40 items will not make much difference considering the size of the trade imbalance and the demand for those categories of product in Indian market. In the past, Bangladesh referred to the non-tariff barriers faced by some of its exports to India, in general, and to West Bengal in particular.

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