FE Report

A two-day long expert-level talks on expansion of bilateral trade through establishing direct banking arrangement between Bangladesh and Myanmar began in Dhaka Monday.

During the Monday's meeting, a four-member team, headed by Manng Manng, Director of Account Department of the central bank of Myanmar, discussed establishing direct banking relations between the two countries with five selected local commercial bank officials.

The meeting also discussed strengthening bilateral banking transactions under the existing Asian Clearing Union (ACU) mechanism between the two countries, officials and bankers said.

Bangladesh Bank (BB) Senior Executive Director Khandakar Muzharul Haque inaugurated the meeting held at the conference room of the central bank Monday morning in which other BB officials were present.

The final round of talks will be held today (Tuesday) with the BB officials.

"We expect that establishing direct letter of credit (LC) relationships between the two countries would be possible," Deputy Managing Director of the National Credit and Commerce (NCC) Bank Limited SM Shamsul Alam, who attended the meeting, told the FE.



The central bank earlier selected five commercial banks, including a foreign bank, to meet the technical team on the day to find out ways to strengthen bilateral banking transactions between the two countries, the officials said.

The selected five banks are Sonali Bank Limited, Janata Bank Limited, AB Bank Limited, NCC Bank Limited and Standard Chartered Bank.

Currently, payments for foreign trade are settled between the two countries through a third country like Singapore.

Bangladesh's importers now settle their payments for bulk exports through bank drafts issued by foreign banks in a third country. An importer is entitled to get bank draft against import worth $10,000-$20,000 at a time under the existing border trade arrangement.