Officials list items for duty-free access to India

Bangladesh wants to capitalise on the Indian announcement at the last SAARC summit to allow duty-free access to its poor neighbours.

Bangladesh officials have started to prepare a list of products expected to get duty-free access to Indian market in line with Indian Prime Minister Manmohon Singh's offer last month.

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Though there is no official offer from New Delhi, the officials have decided to complete the technical exercise of making a permissible list of items for export to India as Singh announced to offer duty-free market access for products of its poorer SAARC neighbours, local media reports today.

The report, quoting commerce ministry officials, says Dhaka wanted to capitalise the Indian premier's unilateral announcement during the last month's SAARC summit to allow duty-free access to products of the forum's least developed countries without reciprocity.

Officials of the commerce ministry, Bangladesh Tariff Commission and foreign ministry were expected to finalise the list of 200 items for getting access to the Indian market, it said.