Home ›› 05 Sep 2022 ›› Front
On the eve of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s visit to India on September 5, New Delhi urged Dhaka to lift various “restrictions” at Bangladesh land ports for the entry of goods from India.
The High Commission of India, Dhaka in a letter asked the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Commerce of Bangladesh to take necessary steps in this regard.
The letter is now being examined by the relevant authorities and it is expected that the port restrictions will be gradually relaxed, a senior official of the Commerce Ministry told The Business Post.
“However, it is a continuous process which will take time,” the official added.
On the other hand, goods from Bangladesh face massive non-tariff and para-tariff obstacles while entering India. India should take initiative to remove this barrier as well, the official said.
India verbally notified Bangladesh about the lifting of the port embargo in September 2020. It again came up in February 2021 during the 13th trade meeting of the Bangladesh-India Joint Working Group. At the meeting, the Indian authority specifically requested that the port restrictions be waived.
The recent letter urged the Bangladeshi authority to consider allowing one major land port without port restrictions or with a negative list of restrictions on the border with each State in the North Eastern Region of India and allowing all rail-based crossings without port restrictions or with a negative list of restrictions.
In previous letters regarding this issue, India had suggested that the Agartala-Akhaura joint check post can be taken as a case study. It had requested issuing statutory regulatory order (SRO) for Sabroom-Ramgarh land port and permitting the export of railway sleepers, petroleum products, diesel, river sand and gravel by rail cargo through Haldibari-Chilahati land port.
Moreover, India has sought permission to export chassis through Bhomra land port, yarn and cloth through Sonamsjid and Bhomra land ports, and printing paper through Burimari and Banglabandha land ports respectively.
Permission was also sought for exporting engineering products, petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, motor vehicles, cars and auto parts, grey and white cement, marble slabs and solar panels through Darshana land port. The list of products also included cotton yarn, cloth, juice and beverages, aluminium ingots and billets, granulated pig iron, blast furnace slag, hot rolled coil, cold rolled close annealed, cold rolled full hard and TMT bar.
Bangladesh became the fifth largest export destination for Indian goods in March. According to official data, Bangladesh exported goods worth $1.09 billion to India in FY 2019-20 against imports of $5.79 billion. In the previous fiscal year, Bangladesh imported goods from India worth $7.65 billion, compared to exports of $1.24 billion.
