Chittagong, Bangladesh: A two-day meeting began on development of bilateral trade through direct banking facilities between Bangladesh and Burma in Dhaka yesterday, according to sources.

At the meeting, officials discussed strengthening of bilateral banking transactions under the existing Asian Clearing Union (ACU) mechanism between the two countries, officials and bankers said.

During Monday's meeting, a four-member team, headed by Manng Manng, Director of Accounts Department of the central bank of Burma, discussed establishing direct banking relations between the two countries with five selected local commercial bank officials.

Bangladesh Bank (BB) Senior Executive Director Khandakar Muzharul Haque inaugurated the meeting held at the conference room of the central bank Monday morning in which other BB officials were present, sources said.

Another round of talks will be held with Bangladesh Bank (BB) today.

"We expect that establishing a direct letter of credit (LC) system between the two countries would be possible," Deputy Managing Director of the National Credit and Commerce (NCC) Bank Limited SM Shamsul Alam, who attended the meeting, told the press.

“We want to use the banking system of letter of credit (LC) which can be used for border trade arrangement,” said managing director of Naf trading and clearing agent.

Bangladesh's importers now pay for bulk exports through bank drafts issued by foreign banks in a third country. An importer is entitled to get bank draft against import worth $10,000-$20,000 at a time under the existing border trade arrangement.