7th Round of India-Bangladesh Joint Consultative Commission

[GS Paper 2 – Bilateral Relations, India and its Neighborhood]

Context – The seventh round of the India-Bangladesh Joint Consultative Commission (JCC) was held in New Delhi recently.

EAM S. Jaishankar said that India is looking forward to working on new areas of cooperation with Bangladesh, which include artificial intelligence, cyber security, start-ups and fintech.

Key Developments

• A joint statement said the two ministers expressed satisfaction that despite challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, both countries have worked closer than ever before in every sector, from security and border management to mutually beneficial trade and investment flows, as well as enhanced bilateral and sub-regional multimodal connectivity.

• It also said that both ministers appreciated that in addition to the high-level visits, there had been intensive engagements through various bilateral mechanisms and agreed to further enhance partnership-building efforts with renewed vigour and regularity.

• The Ministers recalled the warmth shared by both sides, borne out of the shared sacrifices of the 1971 Liberation War of Bangladesh, that have forged close historical and friendly relations that transcend the traditional notion of a strategic partnership. 
• They also welcomed the further strengthening of bilateral ties with the unprecedented visits by both the President and the Prime Minister of India to Bangladesh in 2021. 
• A role model for bilateral and regional cooperation, the Ministers appreciated that the trust and mutual respect shared between the two countries has only strengthened in the last decade.

Indo-Bangladesh Relations

• India was one of the first countries to recognize Bangladesh and establish diplomatic relations immediately after its independence in December 1971. 
• Bangladesh is India’s biggest trade partner in South Asia. India’s exports to Bangladesh for financial year 2018-19 (April-March) stood at US 9.21 billion USD and imports from Bangladesh for the same period stood at US 1.22 Billion USD. 
• Bangladesh has appreciated the Duty-Free and Quota Free access given to Bangladesh exports to India under South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) since 2011. 
• Various Joint exercises of Army (Exercise Sampriti) and Navy (Exercise Milan) take place between the two countries. 

Border Management: India and Bangladesh share 4096.7 km. of border, which is the longest land boundary that India shares with any of its neighbors.

The India-Bangladesh Land Boundary Agreement (LBA) came into force following the exchange of instruments of ratification in June 2015.

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