Indian business team arrives next month

A high-profile business delegation from India is likely to visit Dhaka early next month to look for investment opportunities, said a leader of India-Bangladesh Chamber yesterday.
The seven-member team includes Airtel Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal, RPG Group chairman Harsh Goenka and Tata Steel Vice-Chairman B Muthuraman, said Abdul Matlub Ahmad, president of the India-Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
''Visit of the three has already been confirmed. We are communicating with Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) to get the assurance about the four others, mainly the policymakers,” he told The Daily Star over the phone.
The chamber is also trying to get in the team a top level representative from India's infrastructure giant Reliance Group.
''Our aim is to ensure visits of high profile people from large infrastructure firms of India as we need large investment for our infrastructure development,'' he said.
''We have proposed that they invest here through joint ventures with Bangladesh partners.''
The schedule of their trip will be fixed after Indian PM Manmohan Singh's Dhaka visit on September 6-7.
No business delegation will accompany Manmohan. It could be that trade leaders find less to do during such a high-level visit. That is why they are planning a separate trip, he said.
''We are rather trying to arrange a meeting between five chief ministers of India and the leaders of our top chambers and associations during Manmohan's visit,'' he said.
Chief Minister of Pashcim Banga (formerly West Bengal) Mamata Banerjee and chief ministers of Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya and Mizoram will come to Dhaka with Manmohan.
“These are our bordering states. Through talks with the Indian chief ministers our business leaders will know about the facilities the states can provide to Bangladesh,'' he said.
India is the second highest trade partner of Bangladesh and trade balance heavily favours the neighbouring country.
In fiscal year 2009-10, Bangladesh's import was $3.21 billion from India against $400 million export there.