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Talks with Dhaka on free trade accord this year, hopes Sinha

PALLAB BHATTACHARYA, New Delhi
India hopes to begin talks with Bangladesh for a bilateral free trade accord by this year-end.
"We hope to start negotiations on a free trade agreement with Bangladesh before the year-end," External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha said here yesterday.
Sinha made the remarks while addressing the third meeting of India-Pakistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
His speech constituted an
outline of a new vision of trade diplomacy in South Asia and beyond envisaging free trade accords with major economies of the world.
He visited Egypt, South Africa, Brazil and Argentina recently as part of India's effort for a free trade agreement with an organisation of Latin American countries.
Carrying the same message, he is likely to travel to Dhaka in the third week of this month to attend the Joint Economic Commission meeting.
Commerce Ministry sources
said if efforts for free trade accords are taken to their logical conclusion, India will be able to access a huge market for its goods and services, the sources said.
A number of countries including China, Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) like Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and South American nations like Brazil are among the world's leading importers of goods and services.
The success of North American
SEE PAGE 11 COL 5 Sinha
FROM PAGE 12
Free Trade Area (NAFTA) has clearly prompted New Delhi to go for such benefits in its own neighbourhood, especially in South East Asia.
When Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee attends the ASEAN summit, to be held in Bali later this year, an outline of a preferential trade agreement is expected to be ready dovetailed by a vision of free trade agreement, the sources added.
In presenting the vision of India's trade diplomacy yesterday, Sinha pointed to assure its smaller neighbours that they should stop harbouring apprehensions about their economies to be swamped by Indian goods in a free trade regime.
In this context, he pointed out how exports of Nepal and Sri Lanka to India had substantially gone up since liberalised trade among the three countries.