lol. Every country in the world trades for these exact same 2 purposes - from US to China to India to heck Afghanistan.
However, Islamists forget to mention two things - BD buys a ridiculous amount of cotton from India. It produce textiles from that which it sells to US and Europe and heck..even India. That is BD's biggest forex earner.
The concern belongs to not just Islamists but also business people in Bangladesh. I am in the latter camp. BD buys a ridiculous amount of cotton from Pakistan, Egypt and Central asian 'Stans' as well - not just India. The better long staple cotton comes from those places especially Egypt. We hardly grow any cotton so we have to import all of it and add value which is where it's at.
The majority of Bangladeshi cotton and PSF processing is world-class unlike in India where it largely continues with antiquated and inefficient local machinery. Bangladesh has an advantage in this area because of massive local investment.
BTW there has been plans for local PSF (Polyester Staple Fibre) production for ages here but two large projects are supposed to come on line by next few years with almost 400,000 TPA capacity while Indian capacity of 600,000 TPA sits mostly idle.
You conveniently forget about non-tariff barriers in India for Bangladeshi products. This is where the major point of dissent is. If we can sell to India at a good price (and the quality is there for it as well - I know) than there is no issue.
Its not out of thin air that BD economy is growing at a good pace.
The dynamism of the BD economy grows
in spite of interference from Indian business people and
not because of their assistance. The popular feeling is that Indian business people would like Bangladesh to remain an industrial backwater for their FMCG products meant for the masses. The fact that this did not happen lies with efforts of local business people not charity by Indians.
Trade is a two way street, India benefits in some things, Bangladesh is other things. Ultimately, the consumers are the winners as they get the lowest price from different countries with each country having their own specialization.
We'd like to do this with other countries as well - not just with India, such as Pakistan, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. However Indian govt. wants to neutralize Bangladeshi competition in these spheres to help their conglomerates. In some areas like garments it's not working so they gave up ;-).
The point is however Indian conglomerates don't see the low-cost advantage of producing things in Bangladesh and getting into the game. Rather they'd keep production in India for some strange patriotic reason popularized by their politics. Like the recent foolish 'Make in India' movement. You can't make everything in India. Doesn't make sense cost-wise or even logistics wise.
Those who are predisposed to the Jamaat/BNP camp will always try to show a wrong one sided picture in an attempt to fool the gullible.
Jamaat/BNP is a has been party and is gone. Even anti-AL people don't consider them as a contender any more.
We need and will get an anti-AL party eventually. Or the AL will change to suit, sans-Hasina.
