SAARC, ASEAN in focus at trade fair

State chief minister Budhhadeb Bhattacharjee used the platform of the Industrial India Trade Fair (IITF) 2008 to call for united action on the part of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) nations to promote the economy of the region together with pushing forward the state's industrialisation agenda.

Bhattacharjee said that while regional economy was becoming more important by the day for old economies, SAARC was not able to churn out concrete proposals for the betterment of the region.

He said the importance of Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in boosting the regional economy following induction of China and Japan had gone up.

He was hopeful that if the Free Trade Zone Agreement was signed between the ASEAN nations, India as well as West Bengal could benefit immensely from it. "We should look at increasing our current trade volumes with the South East Asian countries", Bhattacharjee remarked.

He added that the situation in the state in terms of industrialization was changing for the better with investors keen to come to West Bengal now.

Apart from domestic investments in the sectors of iron and steel, chemicals and petrochemicals, food processing and bio-technology among others, international investors from Japan, China and US were taking interest, claimed Bhattacharjee.

Abdul Matlub Ahmed, leader of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industries (FBCCI) business delegation to IITF, said that India should remove tariffs and duties on products from Bangladesh.

Bangladeshi businesses were determined to provide India with international quality goods at competitive price, he added.