The Bangladesh Thai Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BTCCI) has urged the Thai government to set up a special economic zone in Bangladesh. The chamber has also suggested relocating labour-intensive industry to Bangladesh, while also simplifying the multiple entry visas for business community. The call came Monday when a chamber delegation met the newly-appointed Thai ambassador to Bangladesh Panpimon Suwannapongse in the city, the trade body said in a statement. The chamber’s other proposals include more involvement of the BTCCI in the two-country trade fair and other relevant Thai programmes in Bangladesh. The envoy also assured the business leaders of working on their proposals and promised to ease Thai business visas for Bangladeshis. The Thai ambassador promised to extend all out cooperation for enhancing bilateral trade and relationship between Bangladesh and Thailand. The bilateral trade between the two countries is roughly US$800 million a year. Sajjatuz Jumma, president of the BTCCI, emphasised increasing exports from Bangladesh to Thailand. He requested the Thai officials to initiate steps so that new products such as pharmaceuticals, jute and jute goods, leather, RMG and ceramics can be exported from Bangladesh to the southeast Asian country. M A Momen, immediate past president of the Thai chamber, said Bangladesh is a low-cost production base and competitive labour market for Thai businessmen and added the south Asian country could be an ideal investment destination. Thailand could also play an important role by investing in labour-intensive Bangladesh’s infrastructure like roads and highways, power and energy, agro processing. He also stressed the need for sharing data and information between the BTCCI and Thai Trade Center. Ayub Ali, senior vice president of the BTCCI, stressed more cooperation between two business communities and to do more studies on how to reduce the trade deficit that currently exists between Bangladesh and Thailand. He stated that Thailand needs to import more products from other countries and Bangladesh can be one of its important source countries.
