Bangladesh will reiterate its earlier demands at an upcoming New Delhi meeting on issues of a trans- border gas pipeline project and its trade imbalance with India, the Financial Express reported Monday.

Bangladesh will raise the issue of the pipeline, expected to run through Arakan State in Myanmar via the Indian states of Mizoran and Tripura before crossing Bangladesh to Kolkata, at the foreign secretary-level meeting in New Delhi from June 21, before its final approval, the report said.

Bangladesh has already expressed its intention to use the Indian territory as a business corridor to facilitate its exports of goods to Nepal and Bhutan and to import electricity from these two countries.

The other demand that Dhaka will place before the New Delhi meeting is the initiation of effective measures to help reduce the huge trade imbalance against Bangladesh in its bilateral trade with India.

Bangladesh will make all-out efforts to get the demands accepted by India, the report said.

The government of India and Myanmar have already approved the proposal for the cross-border pipeline. But Bangladesh has decided for a close scrutiny of the project in the context of unresolved bilateral issues between itself and India.

Dhaka declined to respond to a proposal by Myanmar for holding a meeting on the proposed tri-nation gas pipeline project, saying that it was not yet in a position to sign any agreement on the gas pipeline until New Delhi agrees to allow the use of the Indian soil for meeting Bangladesh's demands.

The Indian authorities reportedly initially agreed to accept the three conditions of Bangladesh at the first technical- committee meeting in Yangon. But the latest developments suggest that New Delhi has not yet made up its mind on those demands.

India is against tagging the proposed tri-nation gas pipeline project to any other conditions, saying that the conditions put forward by Bangladesh are bilateral issues and should be solved bilaterally.

The 897 km pipeline will cost 1 billion US dollars. This includes involvement of 350 million dollars for Bangladesh part of the pipeline. Bangladesh is expected to earn 125 million dollars annually as transit fee from both the countries.

Source: Xinhua