Tata's investment proposal

It is good that efforts are on to restart talks with Tata, as reported by Jasim Uddin Khan in your business pages on April 30. Some of the reasons behind the 2008 statements are summarised below for the guidance of our negotiators.
1.Tata's proposal was to bring in iron ore from India, and process it into blooms for exporting back to India; using our natural gas as the processing fuel. We, in turn, proposed that they also roll around three hundred thousand tons per annum to billets for further rod rolling in Bangladesh.
2.Regarding their fertiliser proposal, they would manufacture semi finished chemicals and export back to India for finishing it as fertiliser for their use. Our proposal was to manufacture finished urea for use both locally and for export.
I think if these issues are clarified and resolved, and coal fired power is generated by them for our grid, we should go ahead and sign a deal on a win-win basis. However, we should have products from Tata's projects which can be used both in Bangladesh and India, and not use our gas at a low price for processing products which can be used in India only. An
important issue is the price of natural gas, as its local price is on the basis of a subsidy for local users primarily, and not for users in India!.
This important principle in gas pricing needs to be upheld.