Bangladesh and Pakistan Begin Direct Government-to-Government Trade
Bangladesh and Pakistan have resumed direct government-to-government trade after decades of strained ties. Bangladesh on Tuesday officially unveiled the import of 50,000 tonnes of rice from Pakistan, the first such transaction between the two nations.
Relations between the two countries started to improve after a leadership change in Bangladesh. In August 2024, the former Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, who was friendly with India, was removed from power. She escaped to India, where she refused to be deported to Bangladesh to face prosecution.
The relationship between Bangladesh and India has since cooled off following the political transition, opening up room for Pakistan and Bangladesh to restore their relations.
In November 2024, bilateral trade between the two nations was revived when a container vessel traveled directly from Pakistan’s Karachi port to Bangladesh’s Chittagong port. It was the first cargo vessel directly traveling between the countries in decades.
Ziauddin Ahmed, a Bangladesh food ministry senior official, commented, “This is the first time we are importing 50,000 tons of rice from Pakistan via a government-to-government agreement.”
It was in January 2025 that Bangladesh’s Directorate General of Food agreed with Pakistan’s Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP), a state-owned trade corporation, for the imports of rice. Ahmed further stated that this trade presents Bangladesh with a “new avenue” to procure rice at competitive prices. Bangladesh has been procuring rice from India, Thailand, and Vietnam in recent years.
Bangladesh needs rice imports because it is a country that is extremely climate vulnerable. Bangladesh has a population of 170 million and is threatened by floods, cyclones, and other climate-related hazards because of its low-lying topography where the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers flow into the sea.
It has been years since private enterprises in Bangladesh imported rice from Pakistan, though Pakistani rice used to be offloaded in countries such as Sri Lanka, Malaysia, or Singapore first before arriving in Bangladesh.
