The country’s trade gap with China increased by 18.77 per cent to $8.83 billion in last financial year from $7.44 billion in the FY 2015-16 despite a zero-tariff export facility for a number of items to the Chinese market. An economist and Bangladesh Bank officials said the trade gap with China continued rising in recent years as Bangladesh failed to attract the Chinese consumers to its products due to lack of product diversification. Bangladesh’s imports from China stood at $9.64 billion in FY16 whereas exports stood at $808.14 million during the financial year. The trade gap in FY15 was $7.44 billion with exports worth $791 million and imports worth $8.23 billion. The country’s trade gap with China stood at $6.80 billion in FY14 and $5.86 billion in FY13. Centre for Policy Dialogue executive director Mustafizur Rahman told New Age on Thursday that it was a bad sign that the country’s trade deficit with China continued rising in recent years. ‘Bangladesh is now enjoying a zero-tariff facility in exporting its more than 5,000 products to the Chinese market. But, we have failed to utilise the facility fully due to lack of product diversification,’ he said. The country’s single largest import source is China as it (Bangladesh) imports huge amount of capital machinery, industrial raw materials and consumer goods from the country due to lower prices of products there, he said. The increasing trend in imports from China is not a headache for the Bangladesh business sector but the rising trade gap is a matter of concern, he said. He said, ‘China imports products worth more than two trillion dollars from different countries each year, but our export share in the country is very low.’ Footwear, leather and pharmaceuticals will play a positive role in increasing the country’s export volume to the Chinese market, he said.The government should speed up investment for product diversification keeping the Chinese market in mind to decrease the trade deficit between Bangladesh and China, he said. Mustafizur said that the government should take more initiatives to attract the Chinese investors to boost the country’s overall foreign direct investment. To this end, the government should increase the infrastructure facility in the country to manage the foreign investors, he said.The government has taken initiatives so that Chinese business people set up a special economic zone for them, he said.He hoped the country’s export volume would increase if the items to be produced in the Chinese economic zone are exported to China.
