As per the Export Promotion Bureau and Bangladesh Trade and Tariff Commission (BTTC), India’s new rule to determine the country of origin of a product may have an adverse impact on its imports from Bangladesh. As per government agencies, these rules undermine its efforts to narrow the trade imbalance between the two countries.

According to BTTC, some provisions in these rules contradict with those of SAFTA RoO (rules of origin). Under the SAFTA, most of the exports from the least developed countries (LDCs), including Bangladesh, get duty-free entry to India based on a document termed as the certificate of origin (CoO) – and Operational Certification Procedures or OCP.

Coming into force in January 2006 to increase intra-regional trade in South Asia which accounts for about 5 per cent of the total trade of the region, SAFTA comprises eight members of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation or SAARC namely Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. BTTC scrutinized the new rule in light of SAFTA’s RoO and the OC.