Indian High Commission in Bangladesh in collaboration with India-Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce and Industry (IBCCI) jointly organised a webinar on Thursday and discussed challenges and possible ways to facilitate bilateral trade and business between Bangladesh and India amidst the COVID-19 scenario. Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh Riva Ganguly Das spoke to the industry leaders and conveyed that bilateral trade has been showing significant growth in the last few months and the truck exchanges at ICP Petrapole-Benapole showed positive trends in the month of March 2020. She said all stakeholders have to work together to tide over the difficulties being faced by business firms on both sides due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Riva Ganguly said the two governments are working together to fight the pandemic and with their resilient economies and robust business environment, both the countries will not only be able to deal with present challenges but also identify new opportunities. She urged the business leaders to come forward with innovative ideas in response to the emerging economic scenario. As a follow-up action of the announcement made by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the videoconference of Saarc leaders on March 15, a videoconference of senior trade officials of Saarc countries was held on April 8 to discuss the impact of travel restrictions and the larger COVID-19 situation on intra-regional trade. Abdul Matlub Ahmed, president of India-Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce mentioned that though the business community is facing temporary setbacks presently, he is hopeful that businesses will emerge stronger from this adversity. He emphasised on the need of more integration, cohesion, capacity-building and knowledge-sharing in the South Asian region to build a robust trade network. Industry leaders from Pran Group, Iffad Group, SBI Bangladesh, Indofil and CEAT amongst others put forward their ideas on the new challenges to global trade and the regional scenario across various sectors of economy. The business leaders appreciated the initiative taken by the High Commission of India and IBCCI to reach out to the industry leaders in these unprecedented times. The High Commissioner expressed the hope that given the excellent state of India-Bangladesh bilateral relations, they will soon be able to take concrete steps to come over the present situation.
