Qaisar Mansoor
Bangladesh is starting formal negotiations with India for a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (Cepa). The negotiations are taking place at a time when Bangladesh is set to lose the duty-free and quota-free market-access facility to India after 2026 when it graduates to a developing country.
During a recent visit of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to India, it was likely to address the water arrangement issues and further bilateral engagements. But this visit was being focused on Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) for further developments.
Notably, the talks on a CEPA began informally in 2018, against the backdrop of increasing Chinese investments in Bangladesh. The proposed CEPA between Bangladesh and India has three dimensions: Trade in goods, trade in services, and investment.
The main target of the proposed CEPA is to reduce the huge trade gap between Bangladesh and India. Moreover, the CEPA is planned to resolve the issues and challenges of anti-dumping duties and rules of origin through the perspective of multi-model connectivity and deepening of cooperation in the context of sub-regional cooperation.
Although there have been trade relations between India and Bangladesh which are marked as very beneficial for Bangladesh but yet Bangladesh’s government need to re-think about the behavior of Indian government in certain previous agreement issues, such as Ganges water treaty and many others that how much India remained loyal to its commitments. If India is still offering Bangladesh any future agreement on trade and assures Bangladesh to fulfill its agreements in future, this would be “an illusion for Bangladesh” keeping all the facts and realities in view.
Sheikh Hasina should inquire during her current visit about precedent treaties which have not been taken into serious account by Indian government before signing any further agreement. If she does so there is possibility that India will get benefits from Bangladesh one sided as it is expanding economically in the world by self-interest policy and influencing the regional weaker sates. There is another possibility that Sheikh Hasina, influenced by India, is more concerned about saving her government in the upcoming elections rather than the state.
