India will not have the upper hand unless we give them. We have a misconception that, Bangladesh is heavily dependent on India for it's raw materials need. This is not true. Our raw materials come from diversified sources and we can replace India with other countries or increase our domestic production to replace Indian imports if needed. Just a few years ago, 60 percent of our cotton import came from India, but in recently Bangladesh drastically reduce this dependency and sourcing cotton from Africa,Central Asia and US. Now just one-quarter of our cotton needs come from India. This is a very crucial raw materials for our export. This happened because India suddenly halted supply of onion creating a crisis. Onion crisis was a wake up call for the govt. and it prudently decided to reduce India dependeny for our cotton need.
Bangladesh now depends less on India for cotton
African nations have surpassed India to become the largest source of cotton for Bangladesh as local spinners and millers look to cut down their dependence on a single source for their vital raw material.
www.thedailystar.net
Our Onion acreage also increased dramatically and now we are not as dependent on India before the onion crisis as govt. decided to achieve self-sufficiency on onion.
Few years ago, after Hindutva BJP came to power in India, the halted cattle smuggling to Bangladesh by 99 percent. Then Indian home minister Rajnath Singh even boasted that, because of this decision, Bangladeshi Muslims will abandon beef eating. But it turned out to be a blessing in disguise for us. Our cattle farming flourished to meet the local demand. Now we don't need Indian cows even during Eid-ul-Adha. To meet this demand domestic feed production also have grown rapidly. Our maize production went from negligible amount to now 6 million Ton in just 5-6 years and it will reach 10 million ton in the next few years. Now we are 60 percent self-sufficient in animal feed production. Nothing of these achievements would have happened if India had not halted cow smuggling.
We are importing coal from Indonesia, Australia, getting wheat from Russia and Ukraine(except this year), getting oil from Middle East, getting cooking oil from Malaysia, Indonesia. We are largely self sufficient in Rice and most of the other vital food items like fish,poultry, red meat, vegetables, fruits etc. So, I do not see any dependency on India for our any vital needs. Whatever we trade with India can be easily replaced by trading with China, ASEAN and other countries. Out of our 90 billion Dollar import, India provides hardly 10 billion and half of it is actually finished products like automobiles, chemicals, electrical equipment, electricity etc, not raw materials.
