Close on heels of a bilateral meeting between Bangladesh and Russia aimed at expanding bilateral ties in the fields of trade and commerce, economy, and science and technology, Moscow has reportedly informed Dhaka its decision to allow export duty-free products to the Russian market.
It may be mentioned here that as per reports Russia has reportedly called upon Bangladesh to formally apply to the Eurasian Economic Council (EEC) to obtain duty-free export privilege to the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) countries which includes Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kirgizstan.
The meeting between the two nations which took place on October 24 during which a protocol was signed between Bangladesh and Russia, was reportedly attended by a 14-member Bangladeshi delegation led by the immediate past Secretary of Economic Relations Department (ERD) Kazi Shafiqul Azam. Besides the ERD officials, the Bangladeshi delegation included business leaders Habib Ullah Don (President of CIS-Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce and Industry-BCCI) and Aniruddha Kumar Roy (Managing Director of RAM Group).
“Bangladesh-Russia bilateral trade amounted to 160 crore dollars during 2017. If the aspects of the recently signed protocol can be implemented this figure will exceed 1000 crore dollars within three years,”underlined CIS-BCCI President Habib Ullah Don.
After the disintegration of Soviet Union, eleven ex Soviet states constituted a political block named Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Five member countries of EEU are also members of the CIS.
At a time when the industry is actively looking at market diversification, duty-free export privilege to the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) is expected to go a long way towards facilitating the same.
