"The meeting will be held on May 3 in Dhaka," a senior official told the news agency yesterday about the decision taken at a Bangladesh-India meeting of commerce ministers here Friday.

Bangladesh delegation, led by Commerce Minister Altaf Hossain Chowdhury, raised the issue of tribulations created by the Indian Customs Authority to deter imports from Bangladesh.

Indian Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh led the Indian side at the meeting. He was visiting Bangladesh to attend the first meeting of the Safta Ministerial Council on Thursday, which was preceded by a two-day meeting of the Safta Committee of Experts (SCoE).

Bangladesh said the Indian importers of Bangladeshi products were often subjected to arbitrary decisions of the customs authority of India on valuation (pricing) of imported goods for assessment of taxes.

The importers face difficulties in customs classification of products exported from Bangladesh. Tariff concessions available under the Sapta were often denied by way of classifying the items under different product-headings out of Sapta concessions.

"Frequent recurrence of such incidents creates uncertainties and importers of India get scared of undertaking any long-term initiative for marketing Bangladeshi products," the meeting was told.

Bangladesh, at the meeting, raised some specific examples of harassment, noting with concern that Bangladeshi exporters often faced with problems related to HS classification and valuation that caused delay in clearance of goods and avoidable demurrage.

At the meeting of the Bangladesh-India Joint Working Group in August 2005 here, India stressed the need for harmonisation of customs classification as well as customs procedures.