India and Bangladesh to trade in Rupees instead of Dollars

He told a discussion in New Delhi on Friday: “Use of a single currency is possible at least in India-Bangladesh trade, though it is not possible among the eight SAARC countries.” The Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) former President Shekhar Datta proposed use of the India currency, Rupee, in bilateral trade to boost business between the two countries. He said: “Bangladesh Taka and India Rupee have been fluctuating against the US dollars for quite some time. India and Bangladesh are being affected by this instability. In such a situation the two countries can introduce Indian currency-based trade. Both the countries will benefit from it.” He sought cooperation from the Muhith and the central bank Governor to this end. Though Muhith agreed to the at the meeting, he did not say anything about what be the currency will be. The Finance Minister urged the business communities of the two countries to start work to that end. He pointed out that the use of a single currency among SAARC countries was proposed at a meeting of the finance ministers in 1998 in Pakistan and added that the then Pakistani Commerce Minister had taken a strong position against it, saying it was not possible. “But a young businessman had said at that meeting introduction of a common currency is possible among the SAARC countries to the surprise of everyone and all of us will benefit from it,” he added. “The time has come. We can introduce it. It’s not impossible. Though not possible among the eight SAARC countries, we can introduce a common currency between the two countries.” He observed that intra-regional trade was not at all good. “We can learn from the recent global recession... which has not had any impact on China, Malaysia and Vietnam as the intra-regional trade is consolidated in the ASEAN.” Bangladesh has a $ 4 billion trade deficit with India. At the discussion held at CII headquarters, Datta urged India and Bangladesh to work together to raise investment, expand border trade and create skilled manpower in the two countries. The CII organised the discussion in honour of the Bangladesh delegation attending the four-day 46th annual general meeting of the Asian Development Bank held in New Delhi. At the discussion, he urged the Indian entrepreneurs to invest in Bangladesh. Bangladesh Bank Governor Atiur Rahman, India-Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Abdul Matlub Ahmad and Bangladesh Acting High Commission in New Delhi Mahbub Hassan Saleh were present at the meeting.

bdnews24.com...

Well..For what its worth..even little countries are attempting to mover away from the Dollar....

With all the stuff the U.S. does or has done to protect the dollar coupled with China knocking on India's door, this might not have been a good time to announce this; you think?

reply to post by maddy21


Bangladesh has a population of 150 million ppl and India has a population of 1.25 billion. I don't know what your definition of a little country is - but in my view neither of these countries are very little.

It is only a matter of time until the US dollar ceases to be the de facto world currency - at which point the US is going to have to get real and recognise that the economic free ride it has been enjoying has come to an end.

The Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) former President Shekhar Datta proposed use of the India currency, Rupee, in bilateral trade to boost business between the two countries.

He obviously wasn't taking notes when Libyan leader Gaddafi wanted to do the same thing using the Dinar. Under six months later he was dead. Let's see how long it takes for Mr. Datta to succumb to his new fate.

India moving off of the dollar? Looks like those anonymous reports of them supporting terrorist were true after all. Looks like we will have to invade and save them.

reply to post by 727Sky


Well..it was smart play by India actually...that used to be a demarcated area where both countries used to patrol...
India setup posts over there in counter china did..then India played the Victim card and said "China had entered into its territory".. Hence making China as the bully in world stage...

I must admit to not watching the sub-continent very closely with the crisis going on all over every other area of the world, at roughly the same time right now. Anyone have some in-depth background for what this may be all about?

The US is a pretty important trading partner ...but at the same time, India has some very core crisis issues of it's own that we can't help with. Food and Water for their ENORMOUS population being among them. Chronic and unbelievable unemployment issues as a national question being another (and we only have so much tech support we can send to them to handle).

Gotta be more than that tho.... Hmm.. Surely someone living in India can helpfully explain this from a local perspective?

The unemployment issues are coming to an end....The unemployment issues your talking about used to be 10 years back...India for the past 2-3 years have moved of the service outsourcing ..... Employment has been growing in all areas especially in the IT industry and with the burgeoning middle class population ,we are also seeing soo new many business being born and other US and European companies coming to India and setting up shop .. Things are pretty good in our end when it comes to economy.... Recently many cities in India have started Rain water harvesting , which lead to surplus water resources... IN my city it is compulsory for every house to have "Rain water harvesting" . As for population growth , that has decreased considerably when it comes to growth rate specifically.... We have been facing an ass load of corruption scandals from the govt. which has been coming to light ... people are extremely upset with the govt.


We are hoping "Narandra Modi" will be the new Prime minister, He is kinda like Ron Paul of America. He has been heavily supported for his development in his state Gujarat.

Foreign policy


We are facing an Issue with the Afghan exit by US forces in 2014 as , India fears , Pakistan will use the terrorists in Afghanistan against India , especially in Kashmir... ( DID you know US had agreed with Pakistan to not bomb terror camps which was being used against India ).... The India Bangladesh and India Nepal relations are very very positive.. Bangladesh is surrounded by India , so they don't have much of a choice.... We did face a setback with relationship with Maldives and Sri Lanka recently ...

reply to post by maddy21

I take it by your wording and phrasing of the reply that you are in India? So please take this as the curious inquiry it's meant to be and not a challenge.

I had watched some hours of video in my geography course over the last month dealing with both the chronic pollution of the Ganges River (err...not a topic to get onto in mixed company or over a meal, to be sure) and the chronic unemployment. Specifically on that, the issues of rural populations looking to the major cities as salvation for employment, to arrive and find little to nothing available for those not already established?

It had cited such issues as the (officially defunct) caste system playing a role, but not necessarily so heavily in the major cities. The main causes there were more a question of over 1 billion people in the nation with domestic industry and production that simply couldn't begin to keep pace for work with the building numbers?

Given that I still have a couple classes in there before finals and we're not done focusing on India for geography of it's population and internal issues, I'd be real curious to hear how those things have changed or are not as valid now as when the videos were made? I am thinking I'll bring it up in class if the reasoning here makes sense?

I know nothing of economics so would someone explain why this would be bad?

And will it affect me if it happens more often?

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


yup./...am from India.... never said everything was perfect..... we still have 1.21 billion people and comparatively not enough resources.. and lots of starving people, we cant just give money to the poor either...development should come in terms of growth, and slowly lifting people out of poverty ..it is a very long and tedious process which will take another 20-30 years at-least... which is what we are doing and has been quite successful for a while .... For example there is a govt. program to give unemployed people from villages into infrastructural projects , the govt. gives them basic training and a salary and gets their work done and the unemployed get paid , infrastructure gives better access to those towns and villages , increasing the flow of traffic and hence encouraging an increase in economic activities in the area...its slow process sure... but it works and is a permanent solution .. Just dishing out money on feeding the poor only wastes resources while getting nothing in return. Have seen the changes myself in the last few years. The communication satellites being put in Orbit by our space agencies have allowed educational facilities to come up in remote areas, better flow of information and access to information ..

I haven't myself noticed too many unemployed people wandering around in big cities .. Its not like people form rural; areas are coming to the cities in droves. The economies have been expanding and people are getting access to jobs and opportunities outside major urban centers. As for caste system...it does not play a role any more , atleast not with the younger generation..the older generation are stuck with it, but the younger generation dont really give a damn about caste system or religion for that matter...

reply to post by maddy21

Thank you very much for your frank and honest reply. It sounds down to earth and realistic. Indeed, major challenges are never solved in a few months or even years. It's a slow process if it's to be a meaningful one. You might have guessed, the vids shown weren't focusing on that side of things. To be fair, there are only so many class hours to use and a whole world to cover in 101 level Geo- courses, as well. Hence, why I asked.

I sincerely hope the best for India. Over the years, I've counted a few folks from there as friends online and they've generally been some of the most inquisitive and nice people I've known. I've lost track of them over time, but certainly hope they're doing well, too.

Originally posted by Hopechest
I know nothing of economics so would someone explain why this would be bad?

And will it affect me if it happens more often?

Means that all those US dollars countries keep will flood the market, making them pretty much worthless in the global community (same goes for the US bond market, no one will touch them, which means the FED will have to monetize US debt = hyperinflation)

You are hearing about this more and more - countries are trading in anything but US Dollars. It is the elephant in the room, no one wants to admit the US Dollar is failing.....there will be some event and their will be a rush to get out of the dollar.

Just hope there is some kind of warning before it happens (cause the global economy will crash)

reply to post by maddy21


I really don't agree with western companies moving to India, because the costs there are so much cheaper. We are only shooting ourselves in the foot in the long run.

Companies move to India, produce products (cheaper) to sell in Europe and North America but what of employment in those countries? What happens when all the decent paying jobs are gone? We won't have the money to buy those cheaper products = Indians losing their jobs.

In my opinion it would be best that India depends less on exports and more into developing their own base. (don't just become another China)

reply to post by MidnightTide


Companies coming to India are a good thing as , they have to usually partner ship with Indian companies to get access to the market.. This gives Indian companies access to technologies they did not have and gives them greater competitive in the international and domestic market. For example..Indian companies like Micromax have gained a lot of ground in domestic market, due to this exactly and their phones are a lot cheaper and not to mention as good as as the ones you get from Nokia or any other company.... Right now even if we see a couple of foreign mobile companies leaving India ..we have local ones which are good enough ... We can see the same thing in the Auto industry were on the other hand our companies have bought Auto companies like Jaguar and are making headways into even European markets...Reason of Success mainly due to Indian companies adopting similar methods ... We are beginning to do the same thing in the Defense industry ...

reply to post by maddy21


A smart move by India to cut out the middleman.

The crunch time for dollar is when those in this part of Asia will rather use rupee or renminbi to conclude their deals. Japan is a has been and US is following.