An official statement released on Monday stated that India has proposed to consider Bangladesh's extensive free trade agreement to promote bilateral trade and investment.
Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu said that as Bangladesh has gone beyond the status of the LDCs, it won't get duty-free and quotas free access to its products in Indian markets under the SAFTA (South Asia Free Trade Agreement). Prabhu is in Dhaka now.
In view of this, he proposed that India and Bangladesh can do a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA)." The CEPA is a free trade agreement under which two business partners are involved in the purchase of most commodities.
Apart from this, the two sides will liberalize the rules in service and investment. Prabhu said that the economic growth of Bangladesh is a model which can be adopted by the other less developed countries of the region.
Prabhu said this while taking part in the discussion on the India-Bangladesh trade relations. It was organized by Bangladesh's Ministry of Commerce in Dhaka. The Minister also said that the Commerce Ministry has a positive attitude towards developing the framework for resolving the issues related to trade related issues with Bangladesh. They talked about upgrading infrastructure.
Prabhu said that both the countries can consider the possibility of cooperation in connecting Dhaka with other areas of Bangladesh through the 'broad gauge' railway line. Trade between the two countries increased to $ 9.3 billion in 2017-18, from $ 7.52 billion in the previous fiscal.
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