Export more to India to reduce trade gap: Saran

Bangladeshi businesses should export more to the Indian market of 1.2 billion people to narrow the huge bilateral trade gap between the countries, Indian High Commissioner Pankaj Saran said yesterday.

Bangladeshi company Pran has shown that India could be a big market for Bangladeshi businessmen as the food processing company has been performing very well in the Indian market, he said.

"Pran plans to open office in every state of India to do more business," Saran said.

He spoke at the regular luncheon meeting of Foreign Investors' Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) at the Westin hotel in Dhaka. Ficci President Rupali Chowdhury moderated the function.

"Both India and Bangladesh have common economic space. When we look at common economic space, it is a common market, common economic opportunity and common pool of resources."

The chamber invited Saran to speak about the outcomes of the Bangladesh visit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in June when 22 different agreements were signed between the two countries.

Most of the deals were related to connectivity, motor vehicles, coastal shipping line and transit to reduce the cost of bilateral trade, he said.

Bangladesh is a market of 160 million people, whereas India is a market of 1.2 billion, he said. "Why don't you see the 1.2 billion-people market?" he said.

The envoy said goods worth $5 billion were traded through India's Petrapole and Bangladesh's Benapole land ports last year and 1.2 million people of the two countries crossed through the two ports.

He said India is now issuing multiple-entry visas with a validity of one to five years to Bangladeshi businesspeople as they have been facing problems related to visa for a long time.

Energy is another important sector for cooperation between the two neighbours, he said, adding that India is now an energy surplus country.

Bangladesh has a good opportunity to import more energy from India at a competitive rate, he said.

It took 42 years to build a single grid line between Bangladesh and India for energy trade, but now Indian entrepreneurs are interested to invest in power grid with Bangladesh, he said.

India started exporting 250 megawatt of electricity to Bangladesh through a gridline in 2013, and more grid lines will be built soon.

Bangladesh has less trade imbalance with India compared to that with China, he said.

Bangladesh's trade gap with China is worth more than $6 billion a year, while with India the figure stands at $5 billion, the envoy said.

"But both India and China have been making Bangladesh's trade more competitive and helping in diversifying the export basket," he said.

Bangladesh exports more than $500 million worth of goods to India a year and almost the same amount to China, he said.

On the flow of Indian investment into Bangladesh, Saran said the two countries are in talks to build two or three special economic zones for Indian investors in Bangladesh.

Saran hopes the special economic zones will help Bangladesh attract more Indian investors.

On the dilapidated condition of infrastructure along more than 4,100 kilometres of the bordering areas between the two countries, Saran said none of the two countries developed the infrastructure since the independence of India in 1947.