By Sayful Haque, TON Bangladesh

Lately, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh said the authorities concerned to make a plan for buying fuel from Russia. During a recent meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec), she asked why Bangladesh could not purchase fuel from Russia if India could. On August 6, the government raised the prices of fuel, including diesel which is extensively used in industrial, transport and agriculture sectors.

Diesel price was raised by 42.5 percent along with the prices of many needed products. Bangladesh currently purchases fuel, under long-term government-to-government agreements, from Gulf countries including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and from companies in those countries. In late May, Russia, facing sanctions after its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, made an offer to sell crude oil to Bangladesh.

The offer was then declined partly because Russian crude oil is heavier than that imported from Arab countries, and the country's lone state-run refinery is designed to process the lighter crude oil. However, after the recent of meeting Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) it was not divulged whether the government was seeing the importing refined or crude oil from Russia, the world's third-largest oil producer in the world .

Despite the Russia-Ukraine war and people are suffering because of the increase in global fuel prices. India and other countries are buying oil from Russia. After Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the European Union, the UK and the US imposed sanctions on Russian products, including fuel. Nonetheless, India's oil import from Russia surged to record levels amid the sanctions due to a hefty discount.

According to Russian Ambassador, Bangladesh is in discussions with Russia to procure crude and refined oil for its home base necessities and a number of initiatives regarding the supply of Russian crude and refined oil are being debated both at the intergovernmental and business-to-business levels. In this regard, the samples of Russian crude oil will be provided to Bangladeshi experts to find out whether that can be refined here.

The primary discussions have started to explore the mechanisms to replace dollars in bilateral trade between the two countries with major logistical obstacles being removed, the negotiations are ongoing between Moscow and Dhaka to resume wheat purchase also on a G-to-G basis through the direct procurement method. Shared efforts of the two countries made it conceivable to increase the bilateral turnover manifold. In 2021, it reached an all-time high of almost USD 3 billion

Some of them are using alternative transportation routes to continue mutually beneficial trade. A large amount of items have been delivered by air. On August 1, a Russian cargo ship reached the port of Mongla for the first time since the beginning of the special military operation, thus marking the restoration of trade through waterways.

As a result, even in the first quarter of 2022, the turnover between our two countries increased to a size of USD 650 million, which is only slightly less than during the same period of 2021.In spite of the widespread delusion that all Russian banks came under sanctions, there are only 14 financial institutions that cannot provide services to the Bangladeshi partners due to the economic restrictions.

The bilateral trade operations are being carried out successfully through other Russian banks not affected by the Western restrictions and the Central Bank of the Russian Federation and the Bangladesh Bank remain in close contact discussing the ways to open correspondent accounts.

Concerning the energy sector cooperation, the construction of the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant is being carried out without hindrance and as per schedule with help of Russia. Only on August 19, Gazprom International Investments BV has launched drilling of a new well in the gas fields of Bhola Island. Exploration of two more wells is expected to begin this year. It all shows a growing interest of both the countries Bangladesh and Russia to enhance their bilateral relations in the best interest of both countries.