DHAKA, July 23, 2019 (BSS) – A 30-member trade delegation of Dhaka Chamber
of Commerce & Industry (DCCI) attended a two-day CWBTA Eastern India Trade
Summit 2019 held in Kolkata on July 15-16 to help explore new trade
opportunities and build closer partnership with neighboring countries.
Entrepreneurs from India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and Thailand took part
in the summit, said a DCCI press release today.
DCCI’s Vice President Imran Ahmed led the DCCI trade team in Kolkata.
Directors of DCCI Hossain A Sikder, Engineer Md. Al Amin, Mohammad
Bashiruddin, Deen Mohammad, former Senior Vice President Alhaj Abdus Salam,
former Vice President Md. Alauddin Malik were in the team.
The summit aimed to interact with the business leaders of partner
countries on business opportunities, drawing suggestions for the ease of
foreign trade, product basket and conducting informative exchanges.
Industries Minister of West Bengal Dr. Amit Mitra inaugurated the summit.
There were also a B2B match-making session and Fair at the second day of the
event.
In the opening ceremony of the summit, DCCI Vice President Imran Ahmed
said that Bangladesh could serve as a link between South and Southeast Asia
and desires to deepen its economic ties with India, Bhutan, Nepal and
Thailand.
He said the bilateral trade and investment is growing robustly with India
adding that the bilateral trade between Bangladesh and India reached to $9.49
billion.
Despite improved bilateral trade, export from Bangladesh to India was
insignificant contributing only 9.19 percent of the bilateral trade, widening
huge trade gap.
Imran said Bangladesh has taken an initiative of developing some 100
economic zones and special economic zones under the public private
partnership (PPP) model and under the private sector.
The DCCI Vice President thus urged the investors from India, Bhutan, Nepal
and Thailand to invest in these economic zones.
President of CWBTA Sushil Poddar said, “The regional trade in eastern
India has tremendous potentials and can easily be doubled in revenue terms
over the next few years. We aim to make Kolkata the hub for expanding
bilateral trade with the regional countries and beyond”
The summit aimed at forging cooperation among the neighboring countries
which would pave the way for bringing trading communities together from both
sides of border for strengthening regional cross-border trade volume.