Bangla for 1999 treaty revival

Bangladesh is in favour of reviving a 1999 treaty that allowed transshipment of goods through India, new Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed has told a Kolkata-based English daily.

He said the country was looking at establishing regional connectivity to Afghanistan and Sri Lanka through India.

“Connectivity is the biggest issue in South Asia and we will work towards improving it. We would like to ship our goods to Afghanistan and Sri Lanka through India just as we do to Bhutan and Nepal,” he told ‘The Telegraph’.

“At the same time, we are in favour of trans-shipment of goods through Bangladesh. In my earlier stint in 1999 we had agreed on this”.

The senior Awami League leader is in India to attend a SAARC meeting. He met Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, apart from meeting his counterpart.

He was the first minister to visit India after the party came to power for the second time in a row after the Jan 5 elections.

He was the commerce minister between 1996 and 2001 in the Awami League regime.

In 1999, Bangladesh had agreed to allow Indian goods to be trans-shipped through its territory.

This means Bangla truckers would carry Indian goods from mainland India to the latter’s north-eastern states through Bangladesh for a fee.

“Bangladesh is the world’s biggest exporter of readymade garments, selling some $30 billion to the world. India is one of the biggest markets for garments, but we export goods worth just about $500 million to our nearest neighbour. I would like to change that,” said Ahmed told the newspaper.

Bangladesh’s exports to India rose to $564 million in 2012-13, up 13.5 percent over the previous year.

Garments account for 80 per cent of Bangladesh’s total exports and India, whose domestic garments market is valued at $35 billion, is seen as the market which Bangladesh should target for the future.

“India sells us $4.5 billion worth of goods. We do not resent that as most of it is either raw material for our export processors such as cotton, yarn, fibre or it is complementary products which we need such as sugar and machinery. However, we do need new and large markets for our exports.”