As part of the country's efforts to foster deeper trade ties with its neighbour, India has said it will buy eight million garment goods in the sensitive list from Bangladesh every year.
According to an official release, this move could translate into additional annual earnings of around $50-70 million for Bangladesh.
Jairam Ramesh, Minister of State for Commerce, said at the launch of the India-Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce and Industry, "An MoU to give effect to these imports by India is now awaiting final approval by Bangladesh and I hope it can be signed very soon." He further said that even SAFTA has India's full commitment.
Ramesh said as a friendly gesture, India would advance the schedule for reducing import duties to zero for Least Developed Countries in South Asia to December 2007 from the original date of December 2008.
Apart from Bangladesh, this move would also be beneficial to Maldives, Bhutan and Nepal. Jairam said that as in Bangladesh's case, India would clip the sensitive list of these countries as well.
India's step of reducing import duties to zero means that from January 1, 2008, almost 86 percent of Bangladesh's tariff lines will not attract any import duty by India.
"We are taking special care that some items of export interest to Bangladesh are removed from the sensitive list and we aim to complete this by year end," Ramesh said.
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