The leaders of visiting Indo Global SME Chamber (IGSC) of India and Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI), Dhaka on Tuesday laid due emphasize on how the two countries should take the bilateral trade to higher levels and agreed to work together in this regard.
The delegation of IGSC of India visited the Motijheel office of the Metropolitan Chamber, Dhaka and held a view exchanging meeting.
The IGSC delegation was led by its Chairman Dr. Bharat Kulkarni. The other member of the delegation was the Vice President Dr. Niraj Vijayvergiya.
IGSC is a Chamber of Commerce involved in the development of international trade and investments in India. It isworking to define standard guidelines and practices for sustainable organic agricultural sector.
The purpose of this visit was to explore collaboration opportunities with key stakeholders from Bangladesh’stextile sector,where IGSC wanted to promote sustainable agricultural standards.
The IGSC delegation was warmly received by the MCCI President Md. Saiful Islam and Vice President Habibullah N. Karim.
The MCCI President highlighted that CMSME’s in Bangladesh account for 25% of the GDP.The President also emphasized Bangladesh’s performance despite the pandemic and how it was on course to achieving $40 billion export during the current fiscal year. Mentioning the unevenbilateral trade volume between Bangladesh and India, the President emphasized the need to explore opportunities that could make this trade volume more balanced.
He believed agro-based processing was an area where India and Bangladesh could work together.
However, he added that once imported cotton from India underwent value addition in Bangladesh and the final product was exported to India, it still faced non-tariff barriers, which was not desirable.
He also mentioned about improving overall connectivity, and stated how the established riverine connectivity should be fully utilized.
He requested IGSC to send MCCI a detailed proposal so that the Chamber secretariat could facilitate matchmaking between IGSC and Bangladeshi businesses, especially from the RMG, leather, and IT sectors.
The MCCI Vice-President Habibullah N. Karim stated that if IGSC could play a role in the value chain integration between India and Bangladesh, there could be room for some collaborationswhich MCCI could facilitate.
He discussed how policy constraints were impeding trade and collaboration between the two countries. Karim believed that a change in people’s mindset could make a big difference.
As the two major SAARC economies, India and Bangladesh would both benefit from improved bilateral relations, he said.
The IGSC Chairman praised Bangladesh’s economic transformation during the last few decades and agreed that both countries should take advantage of their demographic dividends.
He emphasized the possibility of bilateral movement of goods and people between India and Bangladesh with minimal constraints. The Chairman assured of taking the suggestions from MCCI to India and acting on those for facilitating collaborations.
