Economic ties with India
Sharma visit injects dynamism
The visit of Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma to Dhaka has provided an impetus to closer and mutually beneficial economic relations between Bangladesh and India. The outcome has already taken a tangible shape in certain areas and, in some other spheres, signs of cooperation can be seen.
First and foremost, duty free garment import quota from Bangladesh has been raised to 10 million pieces from 8 million under South Asia Free Trade Agreement. In the last three months alone India lifted 47 percent of the 8 million quota. Overall, compared with US$ 304 million worth of total export to India in the last fiscal year, the first three quarter of the current fiscal has already yielded US$ 359 million in export to the country. In fact, Bangladesh's export to India has increased six times in the last few years. But obviously the trend needs to be taken forward in a huge way to bridge the trade gaps with Bangladesh. Only a good beginning has been made.
Clearly, scope exists to diversify export from Bangladesh if the certification procedures are uncluttered. We must follow up on the Indian assurances for considering our proposal to withdraw duty on 61 products including 54 RMG items. Bangladesh's lifting of duty on import of jute products and India supplying cotton under a special quota are certain to prove mutually advantageous.
The Indian commerce and industry minister has held out the prospect of Indian companies investing US$ 3.5 billion in our telecom, food processing, pharmaceuticals and manufacturing sectors. This is expected to materialise in a few years' time.
The Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) has urged the Indian minister to relax India's trade and investment policy. As AK Azad, president of FBCCI, suggested, Bangladeshi entrepreneurs are keen to invest in Indian services sector, an access India could provide on a reciprocal basis. Because “Bangladesh has a unilateral, liberal and open services and investment policy under its domestic regulations for the Indian investors.”
We are still in a confidence-enhancing process, so that it would be useful to break new grounds.
Deaths in Damascus
Regime must heed people's voice
The regime of President Bashar al-Assad has clearly opted for a violent suppression of anti-government demonstrations in Syria. That is rather ironic given that only days ago the Syrian strongman was busy giving every indication of heeding the people's voice and even went to the extent of lifting the decades-old emergency. With as many as a hundred people dead over two days as a result of deadly government attacks on protesters, Assad's overtures now have been rendered hollow. The lifting of the emergency has turned out to be a sham, with the regime not at all embarrassed about the severe measures it has taken to cling to power.
President Assad is making a huge mistake in assuming that such a ham-fisted way of curbing public protest will save his regime. There are the obvious lessons he ought to take from his neighbourhood. Egypt and Tunisia have sent their dictators packing. Libya's Gaddafi is earning opprobrium by waging war against his own people; and in Yemen, a beleaguered Ali Abdallah Saleh has however resigned. The lesson in all this is that across a wide swathe of the Middle East people have arisen in a spontaneous revolt against long-entrenched rulers. The problem is especially acute in Syria, where the Assad family has been in authority for more than four decades. The country, with its ubiquity of intelligence agents routinely keeping watch over citizens, has turned into a virtual police state. And no matter how higher and deeper the level of suppression of dissent, the regime is today in a vulnerable state.
The government's callous treatment of people can only galvanise them into heightened protests. The shootings have patently dented the credibility and legitimacy of the regime. Its continuation in power can only damage the future of Syria.
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