Bangladesh
ranks 108th out of 156 countries in the global happiness ranking list
ahead of its neighbour India (111), showing that Bangladeshis are
happier than Indians.
This interesting fact came out in the second annual The World Happiness Report 2013 released by the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday.
In Saarc countries, Pakistan ranked 81 in the happiness index while Nepal 135, Sri Lanka 137, and Afghanistan 143.
The report published by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network found that the happiest people in the world live in Northern Europe.
Denmark is the happiest country in the world, with its relatively close neighbours: Norway, Switzerland, Netherlands and Sweden making up the top five.
The other top-10 countries also include: Canada (6th), Finland (7th), Austria (8th), Iceland (9th) and Australia (10th). At the bottom of the happiness table was Togo, while other African countries making up the lowest five positions with Benin (155th), Central African Republic (154th), Burundi (153rd) and Rwanda (152nd).
The report showed that the key to living a happy life include living in a country with a high real GDP per capita, good life expectancy, having someone to depend on, freedom to make life choices, freedom from corruption and generosity.
The UN report also showed that mental illness is a major factor in creating misery. According to the report, 10 percent of the entire population suffers from some form of depression or anxiety, but fewer than one-third of the population seek treatment. Even then, the report states that governments do not spend that much to address this problem. – UNB - See more at: http://www.daily-sun.com/details_Bangladeshis-%E2%80%98happier-than-Indians%E2%80%99_613_1_1_1_10.html#sthash.HFf3829B.dpuf
Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) chief Kazi Salahuddin retained his place as the South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) president after getting re-elected from an uncontested election during the SAFF executive meeting held at Hotel Annapurna in Kathmandu, Nepal on Tuesday evening.This interesting fact came out in the second annual The World Happiness Report 2013 released by the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday.
In Saarc countries, Pakistan ranked 81 in the happiness index while Nepal 135, Sri Lanka 137, and Afghanistan 143.
The report published by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network found that the happiest people in the world live in Northern Europe.
Denmark is the happiest country in the world, with its relatively close neighbours: Norway, Switzerland, Netherlands and Sweden making up the top five.
The other top-10 countries also include: Canada (6th), Finland (7th), Austria (8th), Iceland (9th) and Australia (10th). At the bottom of the happiness table was Togo, while other African countries making up the lowest five positions with Benin (155th), Central African Republic (154th), Burundi (153rd) and Rwanda (152nd).
The report showed that the key to living a happy life include living in a country with a high real GDP per capita, good life expectancy, having someone to depend on, freedom to make life choices, freedom from corruption and generosity.
The UN report also showed that mental illness is a major factor in creating misery. According to the report, 10 percent of the entire population suffers from some form of depression or anxiety, but fewer than one-third of the population seek treatment. Even then, the report states that governments do not spend that much to address this problem. – UNB - See more at: http://www.daily-sun.com/details_Bangladeshis-%E2%80%98happier-than-Indians%E2%80%99_613_1_1_1_10.html#sthash.HFf3829B.dpuf
Kazi Salahuddin first got elected as SAFF president back in 3rd October 2009 and he has been holding on the leading position since then after the departure of first ever president of this football organization Ganesh Thapa, who reigned as the SAFF leader for 11 years starting from 1999.
Under the influence of Salahuddin, SAFF was introduced with two new competitions which are the SAFF women’s championship and the SAFF U-16 championship.
The previous SAFF president Ganesh Thapa, who is currently the All Nepal Football Association (ANFA) president and also one of the five vice presidents of the Asian Football Federation (AFC), appreciated BFF chief for his efforts and revealed the executive committee was happy with his overall leadership activities.
“Current president Kazi Salahuddin is doing very good and we asked him to continue the helm. There is no problem in the committee about it,” said Ganesh Thapa.
“I feel very honoured and in this term, my aim is to improve the age-based football teams and take them to a new level,” said BFF chief after the confirmation from executive committee.
However, the executive committee also discussed about different issues regarding the SAFF events.
AFC general secretary Alex Soosay and representatives of eight SAFF nations were also present in the meeting.
Among the new decisions, the most important one was the venue approval of 2015 SAFF Championship.
The SAFF executive committee decided that India will host the next edition of SAFF Championship while they are yet to decide the hosts of 2017 SAFF Championship.
It was also decided that the 3rd edition of SAFF women’s football championship will be held on September or October next year (2014) in Pakistan.
All the eight SAFF nations were invited to bid for the hosting of U-16 SAFF football championship in 2014 while the possible start of the U-19 SAFF Championship was declared as well. The U-19 event will start from 2015.
He
said, “Other facts we should take into consideration is that China has
shifted to high-skilled manufacturing in almost every sector while the
domestic production of India is very strong. These factors have been
contributing to failure in creating demand for Bangladeshi products.”
Dr Mansur also noted that the non-tariff barrier is an obstacle to the rise of imports from Bangladesh.
“In reality, NTBs in access to India are major constraints, which is disfavoring exports from Bangladesh,” he said.
An optimistic Dr Mansur, however, mentioned that the country’s trade integration with the neighbouring countries is not much pessimistic as India supplies cotton and other raw materials to Dhaka while China supplies capital machinery.
From China, Bangladesh’s import spending in last FY was $ 6.3 billion while, from India, the value of imported goods was $ 4.7 billion.
“Import payments to these two countries amounted to around $ 11 billion. So, the remaining amount is not a big deal. We could achieve more integration in trade with the remaining countries by enhancing bilateral trade gradually,” he said.
He noted that petroleum imports are causing Bangladesh to spend a big amount every year.
Bangladesh has long been an import-dependent country. Its export income is mainly driven by readymade garments from the western countries. Other exports are jute and jute goods, primary commodities, light engineering, shrimp and pharmaceuticals.
In FY 2012-13, the value of Bangladesh’s total trade was $ 60.5 billion— $33.5 billion imports and $27 billion exports.
The country’s total deficit in international trade, however, was $7 billion in the last FY.
The comparison of export and imports from and to Bangladesh with 10 countries is as above.
The SAFTA Agreement was signed on 6 January 2004 during the 12th SAARC Summit held in Islamabad, Pakistan. The Agreement entered into force on 1 January 2006, and the Trade Liberalization Programme commenced from 1st July 2006.
SAFTA was established taking into consideration the asymmetries in development within the region and bearing in mind the need to fix realistic and achievable targets.
Following the Agreement coming into force, the SAFTA Ministerial Council (SMC) has been established comprising the Commerce Ministers of the member-states. To assist the SMC, a SAFTA Committee of Experts (SCOE) has been formed. SCOE is expected to submit its report to SMC every six months. The SAFTA Agreement states that the “the SMC shall meet at least once every year or more often as and when considered necessary by the Contracting States. Each Contracting State shall chair the SMC for a period of one year on rotational basis in alphabetical order.”
The August 21-22 SCOE meeting in Colombo observed that there is huge potential to raise trade among the member- states. The surging SAFTA market has a huge consumer headcount at 1.6 Bn, and therefore is ‘highly promising’.
In fact, SAARC’s grouping of 8 states is the biggest of all regional organizations in the world, consisting of 23 percent of world population, and therefore is world’s biggest regional economic grouping. With India’s new push to increase SAARC trade to $ 40 bln by 2015 and recent developments in Indo-Pakistan trade expansion, the vision of SAARC Economic Union by 2020 has gained new impetus, the SAFTA web portal reads. - See more at: http://www.daily-sun.com/details_Bangladesh-lags-behind-in-regional-trade_613_1_1_1_1.html#sthash.9xjDsYad.dpuf
Dr Mansur also noted that the non-tariff barrier is an obstacle to the rise of imports from Bangladesh.
“In reality, NTBs in access to India are major constraints, which is disfavoring exports from Bangladesh,” he said.
An optimistic Dr Mansur, however, mentioned that the country’s trade integration with the neighbouring countries is not much pessimistic as India supplies cotton and other raw materials to Dhaka while China supplies capital machinery.
From China, Bangladesh’s import spending in last FY was $ 6.3 billion while, from India, the value of imported goods was $ 4.7 billion.
“Import payments to these two countries amounted to around $ 11 billion. So, the remaining amount is not a big deal. We could achieve more integration in trade with the remaining countries by enhancing bilateral trade gradually,” he said.
He noted that petroleum imports are causing Bangladesh to spend a big amount every year.
Bangladesh has long been an import-dependent country. Its export income is mainly driven by readymade garments from the western countries. Other exports are jute and jute goods, primary commodities, light engineering, shrimp and pharmaceuticals.
In FY 2012-13, the value of Bangladesh’s total trade was $ 60.5 billion— $33.5 billion imports and $27 billion exports.
The country’s total deficit in international trade, however, was $7 billion in the last FY.
The comparison of export and imports from and to Bangladesh with 10 countries is as above.
The SAFTA Agreement was signed on 6 January 2004 during the 12th SAARC Summit held in Islamabad, Pakistan. The Agreement entered into force on 1 January 2006, and the Trade Liberalization Programme commenced from 1st July 2006.
SAFTA was established taking into consideration the asymmetries in development within the region and bearing in mind the need to fix realistic and achievable targets.
Following the Agreement coming into force, the SAFTA Ministerial Council (SMC) has been established comprising the Commerce Ministers of the member-states. To assist the SMC, a SAFTA Committee of Experts (SCOE) has been formed. SCOE is expected to submit its report to SMC every six months. The SAFTA Agreement states that the “the SMC shall meet at least once every year or more often as and when considered necessary by the Contracting States. Each Contracting State shall chair the SMC for a period of one year on rotational basis in alphabetical order.”
The August 21-22 SCOE meeting in Colombo observed that there is huge potential to raise trade among the member- states. The surging SAFTA market has a huge consumer headcount at 1.6 Bn, and therefore is ‘highly promising’.
In fact, SAARC’s grouping of 8 states is the biggest of all regional organizations in the world, consisting of 23 percent of world population, and therefore is world’s biggest regional economic grouping. With India’s new push to increase SAARC trade to $ 40 bln by 2015 and recent developments in Indo-Pakistan trade expansion, the vision of SAARC Economic Union by 2020 has gained new impetus, the SAFTA web portal reads. - See more at: http://www.daily-sun.com/details_Bangladesh-lags-behind-in-regional-trade_613_1_1_1_1.html#sthash.9xjDsYad.dpuf
Bangladesh
is far behind in the race of trade integration with 10 neighbouring
countries, including giant economies like China and India, though the
volume of country’s international trade has increased significantly in
recent years.
The other countries are Myanmar, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Thailand, Pakistan and the Maldives.
Statistics available from office of the chief controller of imports and exports (CCIE) show the country’s import payments amounted to $13.8 billion to neighbouring 10 nations while the value of exports was only $1.3 billion in the 2012-13 fiscal, resulting in a trade deficit of $12.5 billion.
Talking with daily sun, experts identified several factors, including absence of product variety and quality in Bangladesh, unexplored market in China and India, Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) in India, indifference of big neighbours in multilateral trade arrangements and establishing monopoly in bilateral trade and the weak South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) arrangements for the widening trade gap.
Former president of the Saarc Chamber of Commerce and Industry Annisul Huq said the product variety in Bangladesh is not rich, which fails to attract consumers from China, India and other neighbouring nations.
“What we produce? garments! …this product is also produced by China and India; and the common target is capturing the market in the West. We don’t feel like going for a huge variety of products to boost exports,” Huq said.
“In China, the market is totally unknown to our manufacturers. Besides, we still stay backward while manufacturers across the world putting more emphasis on producing more quality products,” he added.
Huq said weak SAFTA arrangements are also causing imbalance in cross-border trade with neighbouring countries. “The equation is simple. Big neighbors are not interested in multilateral trade and much attentive on establishing supremacy in bilateral trade,” he said.
Commenting on this issue, Executive Director of Policy Research Institute Dr Ahsan H Mansur said the political confrontation between big neighbors – India and Pakistan – is disappointing member-countries like Bangladesh in getting proper outcome from SAFTA.
“Safta could not work properly due to political rivalry between Pakistan and India,” Dr Mansur said.
He said, “Other facts we should take into consideration is that China has shifted to high-skilled manufacturing in almost every sector while the domestic production of India is very strong. These factors have been contributing to failure in creating demand for Bangladeshi products.”
Dr Mansur also noted that the non-tariff barrier is an obstacle to the rise of imports from Bangladesh.
“In reality, NTBs in access to India are major constraints, which is disfavoring exports from Bangladesh,” he said.
An optimistic Dr Mansur, however, mentioned that the country’s trade integration with the neighbouring countries is not much pessimistic as India supplies cotton and other raw materials to Dhaka while China supplies capital machinery.
From China, Bangladesh’s import spending in last FY was $ 6.3 billion while, from India, the value of imported goods was $ 4.7 billion.
“Import payments to these two countries amounted to around $ 11 billion. So, the remaining amount is not a big deal. We could achieve more integration in trade with the remaining countries by enhancing bilateral trade gradually,” he said.
He noted that petroleum imports are causing Bangladesh to spend a big amount every year.
Bangladesh has long been an import-dependent country. Its export income is mainly driven by readymade garments from the western countries. Other exports are jute and jute goods, primary commodities, light engineering, shrimp and pharmaceuticals.
In FY 2012-13, the value of Bangladesh’s total trade was $ 60.5 billion— $33.5 billion imports and $27 billion exports.
The country’s total deficit in international trade, however, was $7 billion in the last FY.
The comparison of export and imports from and to Bangladesh with 10 countries is as above.
The SAFTA Agreement was signed on 6 January 2004 during the 12th SAARC Summit held in Islamabad, Pakistan. The Agreement entered into force on 1 January 2006, and the Trade Liberalization Programme commenced from 1st July 2006.
SAFTA was established taking into consideration the asymmetries in development within the region and bearing in mind the need to fix realistic and achievable targets.
Following the Agreement coming into force, the SAFTA Ministerial Council (SMC) has been established comprising the Commerce Ministers of the member-states. To assist the SMC, a SAFTA Committee of Experts (SCOE) has been formed. SCOE is expected to submit its report to SMC every six months. The SAFTA Agreement states that the “the SMC shall meet at least once every year or more often as and when considered necessary by the Contracting States. Each Contracting State shall chair the SMC for a period of one year on rotational basis in alphabetical order.”
The August 21-22 SCOE meeting in Colombo observed that there is huge potential to raise trade among the member- states. The surging SAFTA market has a huge consumer headcount at 1.6 Bn, and therefore is ‘highly promising’.
In fact, SAARC’s grouping of 8 states is the biggest of all regional organizations in the world, consisting of 23 percent of world population, and therefore is world’s biggest regional economic grouping. With India’s new push to increase SAARC trade to $ 40 bln by 2015 and recent developments in Indo-Pakistan trade expansion, the vision of SAARC Economic Union by 2020 has gained new impetus, the SAFTA web portal reads. - See more at: http://www.daily-sun.com/details_Bangladesh-lags-behind-in-regional-trade_613_1_1_1_1.html#sthash.9xjDsYad.dpuf
The other countries are Myanmar, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Thailand, Pakistan and the Maldives.
Statistics available from office of the chief controller of imports and exports (CCIE) show the country’s import payments amounted to $13.8 billion to neighbouring 10 nations while the value of exports was only $1.3 billion in the 2012-13 fiscal, resulting in a trade deficit of $12.5 billion.
Talking with daily sun, experts identified several factors, including absence of product variety and quality in Bangladesh, unexplored market in China and India, Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) in India, indifference of big neighbours in multilateral trade arrangements and establishing monopoly in bilateral trade and the weak South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) arrangements for the widening trade gap.
Former president of the Saarc Chamber of Commerce and Industry Annisul Huq said the product variety in Bangladesh is not rich, which fails to attract consumers from China, India and other neighbouring nations.
“What we produce? garments! …this product is also produced by China and India; and the common target is capturing the market in the West. We don’t feel like going for a huge variety of products to boost exports,” Huq said.
“In China, the market is totally unknown to our manufacturers. Besides, we still stay backward while manufacturers across the world putting more emphasis on producing more quality products,” he added.
Huq said weak SAFTA arrangements are also causing imbalance in cross-border trade with neighbouring countries. “The equation is simple. Big neighbors are not interested in multilateral trade and much attentive on establishing supremacy in bilateral trade,” he said.
Commenting on this issue, Executive Director of Policy Research Institute Dr Ahsan H Mansur said the political confrontation between big neighbors – India and Pakistan – is disappointing member-countries like Bangladesh in getting proper outcome from SAFTA.
“Safta could not work properly due to political rivalry between Pakistan and India,” Dr Mansur said.
He said, “Other facts we should take into consideration is that China has shifted to high-skilled manufacturing in almost every sector while the domestic production of India is very strong. These factors have been contributing to failure in creating demand for Bangladeshi products.”
Dr Mansur also noted that the non-tariff barrier is an obstacle to the rise of imports from Bangladesh.
“In reality, NTBs in access to India are major constraints, which is disfavoring exports from Bangladesh,” he said.
An optimistic Dr Mansur, however, mentioned that the country’s trade integration with the neighbouring countries is not much pessimistic as India supplies cotton and other raw materials to Dhaka while China supplies capital machinery.
From China, Bangladesh’s import spending in last FY was $ 6.3 billion while, from India, the value of imported goods was $ 4.7 billion.
“Import payments to these two countries amounted to around $ 11 billion. So, the remaining amount is not a big deal. We could achieve more integration in trade with the remaining countries by enhancing bilateral trade gradually,” he said.
He noted that petroleum imports are causing Bangladesh to spend a big amount every year.
Bangladesh has long been an import-dependent country. Its export income is mainly driven by readymade garments from the western countries. Other exports are jute and jute goods, primary commodities, light engineering, shrimp and pharmaceuticals.
In FY 2012-13, the value of Bangladesh’s total trade was $ 60.5 billion— $33.5 billion imports and $27 billion exports.
The country’s total deficit in international trade, however, was $7 billion in the last FY.
The comparison of export and imports from and to Bangladesh with 10 countries is as above.
The SAFTA Agreement was signed on 6 January 2004 during the 12th SAARC Summit held in Islamabad, Pakistan. The Agreement entered into force on 1 January 2006, and the Trade Liberalization Programme commenced from 1st July 2006.
SAFTA was established taking into consideration the asymmetries in development within the region and bearing in mind the need to fix realistic and achievable targets.
Following the Agreement coming into force, the SAFTA Ministerial Council (SMC) has been established comprising the Commerce Ministers of the member-states. To assist the SMC, a SAFTA Committee of Experts (SCOE) has been formed. SCOE is expected to submit its report to SMC every six months. The SAFTA Agreement states that the “the SMC shall meet at least once every year or more often as and when considered necessary by the Contracting States. Each Contracting State shall chair the SMC for a period of one year on rotational basis in alphabetical order.”
The August 21-22 SCOE meeting in Colombo observed that there is huge potential to raise trade among the member- states. The surging SAFTA market has a huge consumer headcount at 1.6 Bn, and therefore is ‘highly promising’.
In fact, SAARC’s grouping of 8 states is the biggest of all regional organizations in the world, consisting of 23 percent of world population, and therefore is world’s biggest regional economic grouping. With India’s new push to increase SAARC trade to $ 40 bln by 2015 and recent developments in Indo-Pakistan trade expansion, the vision of SAARC Economic Union by 2020 has gained new impetus, the SAFTA web portal reads. - See more at: http://www.daily-sun.com/details_Bangladesh-lags-behind-in-regional-trade_613_1_1_1_1.html#sthash.9xjDsYad.dpuf
Bangladesh
is far behind in the race of trade integration with 10 neighbouring
countries, including giant economies like China and India, though the
volume of country’s international trade has increased significantly in
recent years.
The other countries are Myanmar, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Thailand, Pakistan and the Maldives.
Statistics available from office of the chief controller of imports and exports (CCIE) show the country’s import payments amounted to $13.8 billion to neighbouring 10 nations while the value of exports was only $1.3 billion in the 2012-13 fiscal, resulting in a trade deficit of $12.5 billion.
Talking with daily sun, experts identified several factors, including absence of product variety and quality in Bangladesh, unexplored market in China and India, Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) in India, indifference of big neighbours in multilateral trade arrangements and establishing monopoly in bilateral trade and the weak South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) arrangements for the widening trade gap.
Former president of the Saarc Chamber of Commerce and Industry Annisul Huq said the product variety in Bangladesh is not rich, which fails to attract consumers from China, India and other neighbouring nations.
“What we produce? garments! …this product is also produced by China and India; and the common target is capturing the market in the West. We don’t feel like going for a huge variety of products to boost exports,” Huq said.
“In China, the market is totally unknown to our manufacturers. Besides, we still stay backward while manufacturers across the world putting more emphasis on producing more quality products,” he added.
Huq said weak SAFTA arrangements are also causing imbalance in cross-border trade with neighbouring countries. “The equation is simple. Big neighbors are not interested in multilateral trade and much attentive on establishing supremacy in bilateral trade,” he said.
Commenting on this issue, Executive Director of Policy Research Institute Dr Ahsan H Mansur said the political confrontation between big neighbors – India and Pakistan – is disappointing member-countries like Bangladesh in getting proper outcome from SAFTA.
“Safta could not work properly due to political rivalry between Pakistan and India,” Dr Mansur said.
He said, “Other facts we should take into consideration is that China has shifted to high-skilled manufacturing in almost every sector while the domestic production of India is very strong. These factors have been contributing to failure in creating demand for Bangladeshi products.”
Dr Mansur also noted that the non-tariff barrier is an obstacle to the rise of imports from Bangladesh.
“In reality, NTBs in access to India are major constraints, which is disfavoring exports from Bangladesh,” he said.
An optimistic Dr Mansur, however, mentioned that the country’s trade integration with the neighbouring countries is not much pessimistic as India supplies cotton and other raw materials to Dhaka while China supplies capital machinery.
From China, Bangladesh’s import spending in last FY was $ 6.3 billion while, from India, the value of imported goods was $ 4.7 billion.
“Import payments to these two countries amounted to around $ 11 billion. So, the remaining amount is not a big deal. We could achieve more integration in trade with the remaining countries by enhancing bilateral trade gradually,” he said.
He noted that petroleum imports are causing Bangladesh to spend a big amount every year.
Bangladesh has long been an import-dependent country. Its export income is mainly driven by readymade garments from the western countries. Other exports are jute and jute goods, primary commodities, light engineering, shrimp and pharmaceuticals.
In FY 2012-13, the value of Bangladesh’s total trade was $ 60.5 billion— $33.5 billion imports and $27 billion exports.
The country’s total deficit in international trade, however, was $7 billion in the last FY.
The comparison of export and imports from and to Bangladesh with 10 countries is as above.
The SAFTA Agreement was signed on 6 January 2004 during the 12th SAARC Summit held in Islamabad, Pakistan. The Agreement entered into force on 1 January 2006, and the Trade Liberalization Programme commenced from 1st July 2006.
SAFTA was established taking into consideration the asymmetries in development within the region and bearing in mind the need to fix realistic and achievable targets.
Following the Agreement coming into force, the SAFTA Ministerial Council (SMC) has been established comprising the Commerce Ministers of the member-states. To assist the SMC, a SAFTA Committee of Experts (SCOE) has been formed. SCOE is expected to submit its report to SMC every six months. The SAFTA Agreement states that the “the SMC shall meet at least once every year or more often as and when considered necessary by the Contracting States. Each Contracting State shall chair the SMC for a period of one year on rotational basis in alphabetical order.”
The August 21-22 SCOE meeting in Colombo observed that there is huge potential to raise trade among the member- states. The surging SAFTA market has a huge consumer headcount at 1.6 Bn, and therefore is ‘highly promising’.
In fact, SAARC’s grouping of 8 states is the biggest of all regional organizations in the world, consisting of 23 percent of world population, and therefore is world’s biggest regional economic grouping. With India’s new push to increase SAARC trade to $ 40 bln by 2015 and recent developments in Indo-Pakistan trade expansion, the vision of SAARC Economic Union by 2020 has gained new impetus, the SAFTA web portal reads. - See more at: http://www.daily-sun.com/details_Bangladesh-lags-behind-in-regional-trade_613_1_1_1_1.html#sthash.9xjDsYad.dpuf
The other countries are Myanmar, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Thailand, Pakistan and the Maldives.
Statistics available from office of the chief controller of imports and exports (CCIE) show the country’s import payments amounted to $13.8 billion to neighbouring 10 nations while the value of exports was only $1.3 billion in the 2012-13 fiscal, resulting in a trade deficit of $12.5 billion.
Talking with daily sun, experts identified several factors, including absence of product variety and quality in Bangladesh, unexplored market in China and India, Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) in India, indifference of big neighbours in multilateral trade arrangements and establishing monopoly in bilateral trade and the weak South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) arrangements for the widening trade gap.
Former president of the Saarc Chamber of Commerce and Industry Annisul Huq said the product variety in Bangladesh is not rich, which fails to attract consumers from China, India and other neighbouring nations.
“What we produce? garments! …this product is also produced by China and India; and the common target is capturing the market in the West. We don’t feel like going for a huge variety of products to boost exports,” Huq said.
“In China, the market is totally unknown to our manufacturers. Besides, we still stay backward while manufacturers across the world putting more emphasis on producing more quality products,” he added.
Huq said weak SAFTA arrangements are also causing imbalance in cross-border trade with neighbouring countries. “The equation is simple. Big neighbors are not interested in multilateral trade and much attentive on establishing supremacy in bilateral trade,” he said.
Commenting on this issue, Executive Director of Policy Research Institute Dr Ahsan H Mansur said the political confrontation between big neighbors – India and Pakistan – is disappointing member-countries like Bangladesh in getting proper outcome from SAFTA.
“Safta could not work properly due to political rivalry between Pakistan and India,” Dr Mansur said.
He said, “Other facts we should take into consideration is that China has shifted to high-skilled manufacturing in almost every sector while the domestic production of India is very strong. These factors have been contributing to failure in creating demand for Bangladeshi products.”
Dr Mansur also noted that the non-tariff barrier is an obstacle to the rise of imports from Bangladesh.
“In reality, NTBs in access to India are major constraints, which is disfavoring exports from Bangladesh,” he said.
An optimistic Dr Mansur, however, mentioned that the country’s trade integration with the neighbouring countries is not much pessimistic as India supplies cotton and other raw materials to Dhaka while China supplies capital machinery.
From China, Bangladesh’s import spending in last FY was $ 6.3 billion while, from India, the value of imported goods was $ 4.7 billion.
“Import payments to these two countries amounted to around $ 11 billion. So, the remaining amount is not a big deal. We could achieve more integration in trade with the remaining countries by enhancing bilateral trade gradually,” he said.
He noted that petroleum imports are causing Bangladesh to spend a big amount every year.
Bangladesh has long been an import-dependent country. Its export income is mainly driven by readymade garments from the western countries. Other exports are jute and jute goods, primary commodities, light engineering, shrimp and pharmaceuticals.
In FY 2012-13, the value of Bangladesh’s total trade was $ 60.5 billion— $33.5 billion imports and $27 billion exports.
The country’s total deficit in international trade, however, was $7 billion in the last FY.
The comparison of export and imports from and to Bangladesh with 10 countries is as above.
The SAFTA Agreement was signed on 6 January 2004 during the 12th SAARC Summit held in Islamabad, Pakistan. The Agreement entered into force on 1 January 2006, and the Trade Liberalization Programme commenced from 1st July 2006.
SAFTA was established taking into consideration the asymmetries in development within the region and bearing in mind the need to fix realistic and achievable targets.
Following the Agreement coming into force, the SAFTA Ministerial Council (SMC) has been established comprising the Commerce Ministers of the member-states. To assist the SMC, a SAFTA Committee of Experts (SCOE) has been formed. SCOE is expected to submit its report to SMC every six months. The SAFTA Agreement states that the “the SMC shall meet at least once every year or more often as and when considered necessary by the Contracting States. Each Contracting State shall chair the SMC for a period of one year on rotational basis in alphabetical order.”
The August 21-22 SCOE meeting in Colombo observed that there is huge potential to raise trade among the member- states. The surging SAFTA market has a huge consumer headcount at 1.6 Bn, and therefore is ‘highly promising’.
In fact, SAARC’s grouping of 8 states is the biggest of all regional organizations in the world, consisting of 23 percent of world population, and therefore is world’s biggest regional economic grouping. With India’s new push to increase SAARC trade to $ 40 bln by 2015 and recent developments in Indo-Pakistan trade expansion, the vision of SAARC Economic Union by 2020 has gained new impetus, the SAFTA web portal reads. - See more at: http://www.daily-sun.com/details_Bangladesh-lags-behind-in-regional-trade_613_1_1_1_1.html#sthash.9xjDsYad.dpuf
Bangladesh
is far behind in the race of trade integration with 10 neighbouring
countries, including giant economies like China and India, though the
volume of country’s international trade has increased significantly in
recent years.
The other countries are Myanmar, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Thailand, Pakistan and the Maldives.
Statistics available from office of the chief controller of imports and exports (CCIE) show the country’s import payments amounted to $13.8 billion to neighbouring 10 nations while the value of exports was only $1.3 billion in the 2012-13 fiscal, resulting in a trade deficit of $12.5 billion.
Talking with daily sun, experts identified several factors, including absence of product variety and quality in Bangladesh, unexplored market in China and India, Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) in India, indifference of big neighbours in multilateral trade arrangements and establishing monopoly in bilateral trade and the weak South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) arrangements for the widening trade gap.
Former president of the Saarc Chamber of Commerce and Industry Annisul Huq said the product variety in Bangladesh is not rich, which fails to attract consumers from China, India and other neighbouring nations.
“What we produce? garments! …this product is also produced by China and India; and the common target is capturing the market in the West. We don’t feel like going for a huge variety of products to boost exports,” Huq said.
“In China, the market is totally unknown to our manufacturers. Besides, we still stay backward while manufacturers across the world putting more emphasis on producing more quality products,” he added.
Huq said weak SAFTA arrangements are also causing imbalance in cross-border trade with neighbouring countries. “The equation is simple. Big neighbors are not interested in multilateral trade and much attentive on establishing supremacy in bilateral trade,” he said.
Commenting on this issue, Executive Director of Policy Research Institute Dr Ahsan H Mansur said the political confrontation between big neighbors – India and Pakistan – is disappointing member-countries like Bangladesh in getting proper outcome from SAFTA.
“Safta could not work properly due to political rivalry between Pakistan and India,” Dr Mansur said.
He said, “Other facts we should take into consideration is that China has shifted to high-skilled manufacturing in almost every sector while the domestic production of India is very strong. These factors have been contributing to failure in creating demand for Bangladeshi products.”
Dr Mansur also noted that the non-tariff barrier is an obstacle to the rise of imports from Bangladesh.
“In reality, NTBs in access to India are major constraints, which is disfavoring exports from Bangladesh,” he said.
An optimistic Dr Mansur, however, mentioned that the country’s trade integration with the neighbouring countries is not much pessimistic as India supplies cotton and other raw materials to Dhaka while China supplies capital machinery.
From China, Bangladesh’s import spending in last FY was $ 6.3 billion while, from India, the value of imported goods was $ 4.7 billion.
“Import payments to these two countries amounted to around $ 11 billion. So, the remaining amount is not a big deal. We could achieve more integration in trade with the remaining countries by enhancing bilateral trade gradually,” he said.
He noted that petroleum imports are causing Bangladesh to spend a big amount every year.
Bangladesh has long been an import-dependent country. Its export income is mainly driven by readymade garments from the western countries. Other exports are jute and jute goods, primary commodities, light engineering, shrimp and pharmaceuticals.
In FY 2012-13, the value of Bangladesh’s total trade was $ 60.5 billion— $33.5 billion imports and $27 billion exports.
The country’s total deficit in international trade, however, was $7 billion in the last FY.
The comparison of export and imports from and to Bangladesh with 10 countries is as above.
The SAFTA Agreement was signed on 6 January 2004 during the 12th SAARC Summit held in Islamabad, Pakistan. The Agreement entered into force on 1 January 2006, and the Trade Liberalization Programme commenced from 1st July 2006.
SAFTA was established taking into consideration the asymmetries in development within the region and bearing in mind the need to fix realistic and achievable targets.
Following the Agreement coming into force, the SAFTA Ministerial Council (SMC) has been established comprising the Commerce Ministers of the member-states. To assist the SMC, a SAFTA Committee of Experts (SCOE) has been formed. SCOE is expected to submit its report to SMC every six months. The SAFTA Agreement states that the “the SMC shall meet at least once every year or more often as and when considered necessary by the Contracting States. Each Contracting State shall chair the SMC for a period of one year on rotational basis in alphabetical order.”
The August 21-22 SCOE meeting in Colombo observed that there is huge potential to raise trade among the member- states. The surging SAFTA market has a huge consumer headcount at 1.6 Bn, and therefore is ‘highly promising’.
In fact, SAARC’s grouping of 8 states is the biggest of all regional organizations in the world, consisting of 23 percent of world population, and therefore is world’s biggest regional economic grouping. With India’s new push to increase SAARC trade to $ 40 bln by 2015 and recent developments in Indo-Pakistan trade expansion, the vision of SAARC Economic Union by 2020 has gained new impetus, the SAFTA web portal reads. - See more at: http://www.daily-sun.com/details_Bangladesh-lags-behind-in-regional-trade_613_1_1_1_1.html#sthash.9xjDsYad.dpuf
The other countries are Myanmar, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Thailand, Pakistan and the Maldives.
Statistics available from office of the chief controller of imports and exports (CCIE) show the country’s import payments amounted to $13.8 billion to neighbouring 10 nations while the value of exports was only $1.3 billion in the 2012-13 fiscal, resulting in a trade deficit of $12.5 billion.
Talking with daily sun, experts identified several factors, including absence of product variety and quality in Bangladesh, unexplored market in China and India, Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) in India, indifference of big neighbours in multilateral trade arrangements and establishing monopoly in bilateral trade and the weak South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) arrangements for the widening trade gap.
Former president of the Saarc Chamber of Commerce and Industry Annisul Huq said the product variety in Bangladesh is not rich, which fails to attract consumers from China, India and other neighbouring nations.
“What we produce? garments! …this product is also produced by China and India; and the common target is capturing the market in the West. We don’t feel like going for a huge variety of products to boost exports,” Huq said.
“In China, the market is totally unknown to our manufacturers. Besides, we still stay backward while manufacturers across the world putting more emphasis on producing more quality products,” he added.
Huq said weak SAFTA arrangements are also causing imbalance in cross-border trade with neighbouring countries. “The equation is simple. Big neighbors are not interested in multilateral trade and much attentive on establishing supremacy in bilateral trade,” he said.
Commenting on this issue, Executive Director of Policy Research Institute Dr Ahsan H Mansur said the political confrontation between big neighbors – India and Pakistan – is disappointing member-countries like Bangladesh in getting proper outcome from SAFTA.
“Safta could not work properly due to political rivalry between Pakistan and India,” Dr Mansur said.
He said, “Other facts we should take into consideration is that China has shifted to high-skilled manufacturing in almost every sector while the domestic production of India is very strong. These factors have been contributing to failure in creating demand for Bangladeshi products.”
Dr Mansur also noted that the non-tariff barrier is an obstacle to the rise of imports from Bangladesh.
“In reality, NTBs in access to India are major constraints, which is disfavoring exports from Bangladesh,” he said.
An optimistic Dr Mansur, however, mentioned that the country’s trade integration with the neighbouring countries is not much pessimistic as India supplies cotton and other raw materials to Dhaka while China supplies capital machinery.
From China, Bangladesh’s import spending in last FY was $ 6.3 billion while, from India, the value of imported goods was $ 4.7 billion.
“Import payments to these two countries amounted to around $ 11 billion. So, the remaining amount is not a big deal. We could achieve more integration in trade with the remaining countries by enhancing bilateral trade gradually,” he said.
He noted that petroleum imports are causing Bangladesh to spend a big amount every year.
Bangladesh has long been an import-dependent country. Its export income is mainly driven by readymade garments from the western countries. Other exports are jute and jute goods, primary commodities, light engineering, shrimp and pharmaceuticals.
In FY 2012-13, the value of Bangladesh’s total trade was $ 60.5 billion— $33.5 billion imports and $27 billion exports.
The country’s total deficit in international trade, however, was $7 billion in the last FY.
The comparison of export and imports from and to Bangladesh with 10 countries is as above.
The SAFTA Agreement was signed on 6 January 2004 during the 12th SAARC Summit held in Islamabad, Pakistan. The Agreement entered into force on 1 January 2006, and the Trade Liberalization Programme commenced from 1st July 2006.
SAFTA was established taking into consideration the asymmetries in development within the region and bearing in mind the need to fix realistic and achievable targets.
Following the Agreement coming into force, the SAFTA Ministerial Council (SMC) has been established comprising the Commerce Ministers of the member-states. To assist the SMC, a SAFTA Committee of Experts (SCOE) has been formed. SCOE is expected to submit its report to SMC every six months. The SAFTA Agreement states that the “the SMC shall meet at least once every year or more often as and when considered necessary by the Contracting States. Each Contracting State shall chair the SMC for a period of one year on rotational basis in alphabetical order.”
The August 21-22 SCOE meeting in Colombo observed that there is huge potential to raise trade among the member- states. The surging SAFTA market has a huge consumer headcount at 1.6 Bn, and therefore is ‘highly promising’.
In fact, SAARC’s grouping of 8 states is the biggest of all regional organizations in the world, consisting of 23 percent of world population, and therefore is world’s biggest regional economic grouping. With India’s new push to increase SAARC trade to $ 40 bln by 2015 and recent developments in Indo-Pakistan trade expansion, the vision of SAARC Economic Union by 2020 has gained new impetus, the SAFTA web portal reads. - See more at: http://www.daily-sun.com/details_Bangladesh-lags-behind-in-regional-trade_613_1_1_1_1.html#sthash.9xjDsYad.dpuf
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