Bangladesh and India held the 16th meeting of their Joint Working Group on Trade in New Delhi on 9 and 10 October. It was the first such session after a prolonged gap. A ten-member Bangladeshi delegation attended, led by commerce ministry additional secretary Ayesha Akhter. Over the two days, it pressed India on restrictions that have weighed on Bangladeshi exports for years.
Bangladesh’s core demand was the withdrawal of Indian anti-dumping duties on its jute products and PET film. Exporters say the duties have made Bangladeshi jute goods less competitive in what was historically one of their largest markets. Bangladesh also asked India to lift restrictions on exports routed through specific Indian land ports. Much of Bangladesh’s land-based trade with India, and onward markets beyond it, depends on that channel.
The delegation raised a longer list of asks beyond those two headline items. It wants India to keep extending South Asian Free Trade Area tariff benefits once Bangladesh graduates from least-developed-country status. That transition is expected to strip away trade preferences Bangladeshi exporters have relied on for decades. Dhaka also pushed for shared product standards and mutual recognition between the two countries’ testing bodies. Those changes would cut the paperwork and retesting Bangladeshi goods currently face at the Bureau of Indian Standards.
Infrastructure as a trade barrier
Much of the discussion centred on physical bottlenecks rather than tariffs alone. Bangladesh asked India to upgrade infrastructure at land customs stations: access roads, parking, warehousing, cargo inspection and quarantine facilities. It also asked India to expand port capacity, to speed up cargo clearance. It sought greater access too, for Bangladeshi freight trucks moving through Indian territory en route to Nepal and Bhutan. That route would cut delivery times for goods now forced onto longer paths.
Bangladesh pressed for the CEOs’ Forum, a business-to-business body meant to deepen private-sector engagement between the two countries, to start operating rather than stay dormant. The two sides also discussed the Akhaura-Agartala rail link and wider rail connectivity. They also raised long-running friction over border haats, the small cross-border markets that operate in designated zones along the frontier.
India’s own list of asks
India used the talks to press its own requests. It asked Bangladesh to remove restrictions on exports of cotton yarn and other products through certain land ports. It also asked Dhaka to ease barriers facing exports from India’s northeastern states into Bangladesh. Delhi has long seen that route as underused, relative to its potential. Both sides agreed, in general terms, on the need to cut the time and cost of bilateral trade. They pointed to more efficient land ports, streamlined customs procedures and better-coordinated border operations as the way to do it.
The talks produced no binding outcomes. Neither side announced a timeline for resolving the anti-dumping duties or the land port restrictions at the centre of Bangladesh’s complaints. For now, the meeting marks a resumption of formal trade dialogue after a long gap. Several contentious issues remain unresolved, the jute duties chief among them. Both governments have pointed to the next working group session as the venue where concrete movement might follow. Neither has set a date for it.
Bangladesh’s exporters will be watching that next session closely. The jute industry has pressed Dhaka for years to resolve the anti-dumping dispute, arguing that Indian duties have pushed buyers toward other suppliers. Every month without a resolution, industry figures say, is a month of lost orders that may not come back even if the duties are eventually lifted.
