India’s junior minister Singh to meet PM, FM in Dhaka

India’s junior external affairs minister VK Singh will meet Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali during his 24-hour visit to Bangladesh to attend a business conclave.

He arrived around 4:30pm on Saturday in a Jet Airways flight, an executive of the India-Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce and Industry (IBCCI) that invited him said.

A former Indian Army chief, General Singh retired on May 31, 2012 and joined the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Mar 1 this year before being elected from Ghaziabad constituency in the May general elections.

He is also a state minister (independent charge) of the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region, which would be the focus of the Sunday business gathering styled “A New Phase in Bilateral Economic Relations”.

Singh will call on the prime minister at 7pm on Saturday, according to her office.

The foreign ministry scheduled his meeting with the minister at around 9am, an hour before the opening of the India-Bangladesh business conclave.

Meghalaya Chief Minister Mukul Sangma and Commerce and Industry Minister of Tripura Tapan Chakraborty who will also join the conclave will accompany him during the meetings.

The IBCCI and the Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC), Kolkata are co-hosting the event that will bring together senior policy makers as well as business representatives of both sides.

Indian High Commission in Dhaka which is also supporting the conclave says it will serve as “a platform for further enhancing trade, commerce and investment between India and Bangladesh”.

Officials say though it is his “private” visit, both Dhaka and Delhi wanted to have high-level meetings as his visit follows the one of foreign minister Sushma Swaraj in June.

Swaraj made her “extremely satisfying and fulfilling” visit to Dhaka within a month of his party assured the power in Delhi.

Bangladesh is currently India’s biggest trading partner among the SAARC countries.

According to the bilateral chamber IBCCI, Indian investment was worth $2.5 billion last year.

Since Nov 2011, Bangladesh has been enjoying duty- and quota-free access to the Indian market for all items except 25 tariff lines consisting of tobacco, spirits and alcohol.

But Bangladesh’s $563.9 million exports to India in the last fiscal were the highest ever against India’s export of over $ 4.5 billion.

“We’ll discuss various bottlenecks that are coming in the way of increasing the trade,” Jahangir Bin Alam, chief executive officer of IBCCI earlier told bdnews24.com.

India’s Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region is responsible for issues relating to the planning, execution and monitoring of development schemes and projects for the region that shares border with Bangladesh.

Bangladesh considers the development of India’s north-eastern region would also benefit it.

“It will ultimately be a win-win situation for all of us,” the foreign minister Mahmood Ali recently said in a seminar in Dhaka.

Dhaka has already requested New Delhi to let it open a Deputy High Commission in Guwahati.

It also asked for permission to upgrade its Agartala Visa Office to an Assistant High Commission to increase diplomatic and commercial presence in the north-east.