Bangladesh is eyeing strengthening ties with Central Asia where it carries out the least trades compared to other blocks.
The country has the strongest trading relations with the European Union block followed by that with tripartite block of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
Out of the total Tk 7 trillion, Bangladesh trades only Tk 80 billion with Central Asia’s Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU).
Officially launched in 2015, the EAEU is a political and economic union of states located in central and northern Eurasia. The union consists of five countries- Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan, with a combined population of 200 million and GDP of four trillion dollars.
Bangladesh is now gearing up for better cooperation with this block and has already taken several initiatives in this regard.
“We are already giving importance to expanding ties with Central Asia where most of our trade is with Russia but we’re not getting duty-free access,” said a foreign ministry official wishing to remain anonymous.
He said that during discussions of duty-free facilities, Russia said that the Bangladesh secretariat has to negotiate with the union.
“The process has already started. During the commerce minister’s visit to Moscow last May, we signed an agreement with the union,” the foreign ministry official said.
Another ministry official said that the negotiations will not only depend on trade criterions but also the political ties.
He said that the foreign minister travelled to Russia immediately after taking office and in July of this year, the prime minister gave orders to move forward with the process during the envoy conference at London.
“The political leaders have increased visits to that region and hopefully a top-level visit will take place this year,” he said.