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India for early CEPA, joint defence production with Bangladesh
Shahidul Islam Chowdhury | Published: 23:35, Mar 08,2022 | Updated: 07:11, Mar 09,2022https://www.newagebd.net/article/16...cepa-joint-defence-production-with-bangladesh
India has sought to launch joint defence production and expedite the signing of a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement with Bangladesh.
‘We need to give more impetus to joint production of defence equipment. Our defence cooperation has not been progressed though India offered a $500 million line of credit. The time has come to take it to the next level,’ India’s commerce minister Piyush Goyal said at a virtual meeting of the India-Bangladesh stakeholders on Monday, according to The Indian Express.
In 2017, during a visit of prime minister Sheikh Hasina to India, India had signed a memorandum of understanding for providing a $500 million line of credit to Bangladesh for defence-related procurement.
India has been pursuing the implementation of the defence MOU in almost all high-level meetings for the last five years, diplomatic sources said.
Piyush Goyal, who is also the industry minister of the country, listed four focus areas for strengthening the bilateral relationship, including an uninterrupted supply chain, a joint production of defence equipment and pharmaceutical goods.
‘We look to advance a comprehensive economic partnership agreement with Bangladesh in the days to come,’ he said.
He also emphasised exploring potential areas of investments – textile, jute products, leather and footwear, active pharmaceutical ingredients, medical equipment, digital health and education services, agribusiness, electronics and renewable energy, among others.
‘Time has come for joint manufacturing of vaccines and other medicines,’ he said, with specific mentions of Covid-19 vaccines Covaxin and Covishied produced in India.
Bangladesh and India were holding a joint study on the possibilities and scopes of signing either a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement or a Free Trade Agreement between the two countries.
The two sides were also working on strengthening regional connectivity through multimodal transport involving road, rail, river and sea routes.
As India’s biggest trade partner in South Asia, Bangladesh’s export to the country was $1.3 billion and import $9.9 billion in 2020-2021.
Bangladesh imports cotton, agricultural products, fuel, vehicles and vehicle parts, machinery and mechanical appliances; and export mainly RMG, cement and raw jute.
Since 2011, Bangladesh agreed to receive a total of $8 billion under three lines of credit for different projects, mainly related to connectivity in the region.
In the last meeting of the commerce secretaries of the two countries on March 4, Bangladesh iterated demands for removing all tariff and non-tariff barriers set by India on jute and several other products.
Bangladesh also demanded duty-free market access even after graduation from a least developed to a developing country in 2026.
