DHAKA, Oct 4: Bangladeshi business leaders have lambasted Delhi for its ‘negative attitude’ towards providing access to Bangladeshi goods to the Indian market. They also demanded that Bangladesh should devise para-tariff and non-tariff barriers to Indian exports, organize lobbies to oppose imports from India and instruct the customs and police officials to stop any goods coming from the next-door neighbour.

Some of the leaders even went to the extent of urging the government to internationalise Dhaka’s trade disputes with Delhi, with a view to removing the current trade imbalance between the two countries which is heavily tilted towards Delhi.

Irritated by India’s constant refusal to allow a level-playing field in Indo-Bangladesh trade, the business leaders, representing Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industries (DCCI), Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Industries (MCCI) and International Chamber of Commerce-Bangladesh (ICC-B), made the outbursts at a roundtable on merits of the tariff concessions recently given by India and national preparedness to meet the contractual obligations under WTO rules. The roundtable was organized by the MCCI.

Dhaka has an over two billion US dollars of trade deficit with India which gives no concession even on reciprocal basis for years together. India further showed misdemeanour to potential Bangladeshi exports, imposed para-tariff and non-tariff barriers, applied anti-dumping weapons and took pre-emptive steps to restrict any Bangladeshi investment there.

The participants at the roundtable also said that Bangladesh was maintaining liberal approach to the foreign companies, including the Indian ones. But India has imposed several restrictions on investment and import from Bangladesh and other neighbouring countries and such one-way trade traffic to Bangladesh should be stopped, they said.

The Commerce Minister, Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury, who was the chief guest on the occasion, told the audience that Indo-Bangladesh trade negotiations yielded “not very good results” so far and “India should not mind had the trade disputes been raised at the international level for settlement.”

Regarding anti-dumping duty imposed by the Indian authorities on Bangladeshi battery, the Commerce Minister said that “the issue could be taken up at the international bodies for settlement, since it is absolutely a trade related issue and this should not hurt bilateral relationship of the two countries.”

Earlier, the president of the ICC- B, Mahbubur Rahman, observed that “time has come to take initiatives to protect Bangladesh market from Indian goods.”

He also observed that “there had been a number of commitments from the Indian side during last 30 years, but there has been no achievement in terms of trade cooperation from India so far.”

Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industries President Motiur Rahman said: “We must boycott Indian goods and all of us should fight against Indian attitude towards us. Observing that India did not reciprocate Bangladesh’s opening up of market, the DCCI president demanded that Dhaka imposing restriction on import of Indian products.”