Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi today sought sincere support from Russia for ensuring direct export of Bangladeshi products including RMG to their market.
Tipu said there is a huge demand for Bangladeshi products including RMG in Russian market, but the RMG exports are being done there through another country due to various complexities.
He said the existing complexities have already been identified while efforts are on to addressing those.
The Commerce Minister said this when newly appointed Russian Ambassador to Dhaka Alexander V. Mantytskiy met him at his Secretariat office.
Tipu also hoped that once these issues are addressed properly, then export of Bangladeshi products would increase manifold to Russian market for which there is a need for sincere support from the Russian side.
Mentioning that Russia is a friendly nation of Bangladesh, he said Bangladesh always expresses its gratitude to Russia since the country played a very important role during the War of Liberation of Bangladesh.
The Commerce Minister cited that the trade volume with Russia could not be increased to a big extent due to some complexities in transaction in the banking channel and also due to some complexities related to duty.
He also hoped that with the help of Russia, Bangladesh would be able to boost its export to Eurasian Economic Union and CIS countries.
In response, the Russian Ambassador said that Russia attaches special importance to its relationship with Bangladesh while the country is interested to boost its trade and investment relationship with Bangladesh.
Since there is a huge demand for Bangladeshi products in Russian market, Mantytskiy hoped that the bilateral trade and investment would increase in the coming days if the existing trade barriers are removed.
He said that the Russian government is very much interested to resolve the existing barriers and thus wants to be a development partner of Bangladesh.
According to official data, Bangladesh exported goods worth $665.31 million to Russia against the imports of $466.70 million in the last fiscal year (FY21).
Commerce Secretary Tapan Kanti Ghosh, Additional Secretary (export) M Hafizur Rahman, Additional Secretary (FTA) Nur Md Mahbubul Haque were present, among others, on the occasion.
