Chapter : 1
Introduction
Bangladesh suffers a huge trade imbalance with India. Apart from the large size of the economy, maintenance of a high protectionist trade regime by India in the forms of tariff and non-tariff barriers have contributed to this imbalance. While Bangladesh has progressed much ahead of India along with its liberalization of trade, India remains slow. Both Bangladesh and India are two major countries of the SAARC and have a long common historical past and similar cultural and social evolution. As far as trade relation is concerned, India is the 2nd largest trading partner of Bangladesh just after USA in 2003. India’s position is at the top for Bangladesh’s imports from the world (IMF: Direction of Trade Statistics, June 2004). Therefore, an analysis of current trade status between the two nations, obstacles and opportunities for mutual trade expansion is very critical for economic development of both countries, especially of Bangladesh, as Bangladesh has been suffering from historical trade deficit with India since its independence. The trade deficit has been increasing exponentially since the recent past. Official data show that compared to 1983, trade deficit in 2003 is more than 46 times higher1 (IMF: Direction of Trade Statistics). This growing deficit is a cause of serious concern for Bangladesh and has important economic and political implications. Hence the importance of the study is realized, and it is expected that the study will help policy makers to understand the roots of the problems on the way of trade expansion, and to formulate and execute the appropriate policy measures to mitigate or remove these problems. With this objective in mind, this paper makes an attempt to deal with the issues of bilateral trade relationship between Bangladesh and India.

Background of the Study:

We are the students of B.B.A. department of Southeast