Close on heels of news that all concerned ministries in Bangladesh have reached a consensus on signing the much-awaited Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with India to expand trade and investment with the neighbouring country, businesses and economists in Bangladesh have maintained the proposed CEPA with India should be partially reciprocal, not fully, as India has a big economy and a huge basket of diversified products for export.
According to reports, economists have maintained if a fully reciprocal CEPA is signed in the beginning, Bangladesh may not be able to enjoy benefits from the same which covers investment, trade and services sectors even if Bangladesh’s share in bilateral trade currently is one fourth, with India dominating with a lot of export items.
Speaking to the media, distinguished fellow of Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) — CPD is an independent think-tank with local roots and global outreach and focuses on frontier issues which are critical to the development process of Bangladesh, South Asia and LDCs — Mustfizur Rahman, reportedly, maintained if a fully reciprocal CEPA is signed in the beginning, Bangladesh may not be able to enjoy benefits from the trade deal even as he underlined the deal will obviously waive a handsome amount of import duties on Indian products, impacting revenue generation, which is a concern for Bangladesh.
