The Indian government has agreed to allow chemical analysis of imported food products from Bangladesh at Guwahati, instead of Kolkata. Earlier, from August to January last the central food laboratory in Kolkata was the only authority to certify the imported food items from Bangladesh because of temporary suspension of operation by the Agartala regional food laboratory.

As a result, the exporters of Bangladeshi food items faced difficulties in exporting their products to India, particularly to its northeast states, through the Agartala Land Customs Station (LCS). It took then 3045 days to do the consignment testing, but now completion of the entire process requires only 78 days.

According to statistics, Bangladesh exports food items worth US$100 million (10 crore) annually to India, mainly to West Bengal and the landlocked northeast states. The overall trade position, however, is still in favour of India and the trade gap between the two countries stood at US$ 1.604 billion (160.4 crore) in the fiscal 200506 despite taking different trade promotion measures by the concerned authorities. In the fiscal 200506, Bangladeshs exports to India stood at $241.96 million against imports worth $1.846 billion.