Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN) – Burma has started business with Bangladesh through direct banking channel to expedite bilateral trade relations between the two countries, officials said.
Burmese businessmen have opened two letters of credit (LCs) with the state-owned Sonali Bank Limited, for the first time, under the existing Asian Clearing Union (ACU) mechanism, a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB), the country’s central bank told BBN in Dhaka.
The central banker also said payments for foreign trade earlier had been settled between the two countries through a third country like Singapore or Thailand.
“The BB earlier requested Burma, officially known as Myanmar, for taking initiatives for opening LCs with its commercial banks directly using the ACU mechanism,” the central banker noted.
On Sunday last, the Ministry of Commerce organized a meeting on the expansion of Bangladesh-Myanmar bilateral trade activities with Secretary M Ghulam Hossain in the chair, a ministry official said.
“A new window has been opened on expansion of the bilateral trade between the two countries though opening the LCs under the ACU arrangement,” the ministry official noted.
The meeting also decided to hold two seminars — one in Dhaka and another in Chittagong, which would be organized by the Bangladesh-Myanmar Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BMCCI).
 “We’ll invite four to five Burmese banks to participate in the seminars on building up awareness of the ACU mechanism,” Vice President of the BMCCI SM Nurul Hoque said.
Mr. Hoque, also director of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI), said a single-country trade fair would be held in Rangoon this year to attract Burmese businessmen to the import of Bangladeshi products.
The ACU is an arrangement among Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Iran, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the Maldives, through which intra-regional transactions between the participating central banks are settled on a multilateral basis.
The volume of bilateral trade between the two countries has been quite ‘insignificant’ for years because of lack of proper initiatives. The balance of trade, according to officials, has tilted in favour of Burma over the past fifteen years.
However, a review of bilateral trade between the two countries shows that the trade balance was in favour of Bangladesh from 1991-92 to 1995-96. But in 1996-97 it tilted towards Myanmar.
Dhaka exported goods and commodities worth only US$ 9.65 million to Rangoon in 2010-11, while its import during the period stood at $175.72 million.
Bangladesh mainly exports pharmaceutical products, leather, woven garments and other manufacturing goods to Myanmar and imports wood articles, vegetable products, prepared food and fish.
 
BBN/SSR/AD-14Feb12-9:10 am (BST)