With the SAARC summit suspended for the last couple of years, the issue of increased trade amongst member countries didn't make much progress. Against such a backdrop, government officials are preparing for SAPTA talks to boost regional trade. A delegation from the Bangladesh Ministry of Commerce is expected to participate in the negotiations, sources said adding the main agenda at the negotiation would be duty reduction for increasing intra-regional trade. A meeting of high-powered representatives from top chamber bodies and relevant ministries was held at the commerce ministry a few days ago to work out a strategy for the talks, presided over by Bangladesh commerce secretary Golam Rahman, sources said. Following the first, second and third rounds of negotiations, India and Pakistan had issued some notifications allowing certain percentage of duty reduction on various items from Bangladesh and other least developed countries (LDCs) in the region, namely Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives. Although Pakistancommitted it would provide 20 per cent duty concessions on a number of items at the negotiations, it gave 15 per cent tariff reduction on 488 items and 10 per cent rebate on 326 items in its notification, sources said. On the other hand, India, in a notification, informed the Bangladesh government it would provide 10 to 90 per cent duty concessions on 77 items. Such trade concessions are yet to be implemented, since the countries did not take follow-up action after the notifications, say sources in business circles.

Bangladesh mobile phone service The state-owned Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB) plans to introduce cellular mobile phone services at a cheaper rate some time this year, even as Grameen Phone (GP), one of the country's private cellular mobile operators, plans to introduce Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) in its network. There are already four cellular mobile phone operators in the private sector with about 228,000 subscribers.

"BTTB has floated an international tender for supply, installation, testing and commissioning of required equipment and accessories for mobile telephone service in the country," a top BTTB official said adding the service would be launched in the shortest possible time as BTTB has its network throughout the country. BTTB plans to initially install 400,000 cellular mobile phones with Global Standard of Mobile Communication (GSM) technology in the capital and other parts of the country and the number would be increased considering the demand and supply. Another BTTB official said subscription, monthly service charge and call rate of their mobile phone service would be lower than that of private operators as BTTB would not have to invest a lot to provide the necessary infrastructure. "The project would be financed on turnkey basis through supplier's credit scheme as BTTB does not have the resource to finance such big project now," he added.

(India Abroad News Service)