960402

India to slash

import duty

on BD goods

NEW DELHI: India, taking a step forward towards a free trade zone in South Asia, plans to lower import tariffs on Bangladeshi goods by the end of June and eventually allow duty-free imports, Indian officials said on Tuesday.

"By the end of June, we should be able to definitely liberalise trade in items of selective export interest to Bangladesh," Commerce Secretary Tejendra Khanna told a seminar on Indo-Bangladesh relations.

Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee called for a dramatic reduction in tariffs to enhance ties between the two neighbours, who together form a market of over one billion people and hold a quarter of the world's population.

"We have extended to Bangladesh preferential treatment in terms of reduced tariffs on a number of items of interest to them," Mukherjee said in a speech read out in his absence.

"But I think the time has come to go further and give Bangladesh virtually zero-tariff access to our market, subject to a few exceptions, which can be placed on a negative list," the minister said.

Khanna, the most senior bureaucrat in the Commerce Ministry, was speaking after Mukherjee and responding to a proposal made by Bangladesh's high commissioner, C.M. Shafi Sami, who wanted India to allow duty-free import of certain Bangladeshi goods.

The goods, comprising ceramic items, leather products, and basic pharmaceutical and cosmetic goods, would pose negligible competition to Indian industry while bolstering Bangladesh's industrial activity and bilateral trade, Sami said.

Bangladesh, whose land-borders all straddle Indian provinces, bought some $600 million worth of Indian goods in 1994/95 (April-March) but exported only $40 million in return.

"India has not emerged as a natural market to Bangladesh," envoy Sami told the seminar. "But India's exports to Bangladesh have grown thirty-fold in the short span of 10 years."-Reuter