By Mizan Rahman
Dhaka
Bangladesh has proposed inclusion of a new transit provision in the current Indo-Bangladesh bilateral trade agreement for ferrying goods from the country to Nepal and Bhutan across Indian territory, a senior foreign ministry official said yesterday.
The proposal was made apparently to strike a balance in the trade agreement as India enjoys similar facility in the trade pact for carrying goods from its one state to another using Bangladesh land.
The three-year trade agreement will expire on Thursday.
The ministry of commerce has yet to have a response from the Indian government to the proposal.
“We are waiting for response from the Indian authorities to our proposal, ahead of the trade pact renewal,” commerce secretary Hedayet Ullah Al Mamun told newsmen yesterday.
He, however, refused to give details of the proposal the Bangladesh government has made.
“It is a sensitive issue which I cannot disclose for the sake of diplomatic norms and bilateral ties,” Hedayet added.
Sources in the foreign ministry said they had sought transit facility under the existing trade agreement so that goods could be carried from Bangladesh to Nepal and Bhutan using Indian corridor.
“India enjoys an edge over Bangladesh regarding transit under the current India-Bangladesh trade agreement, signed originally in 1972,” a high official in the foreign ministry said, adding, “It is nothing wrong on Bangladesh’s part to seek a similar facility from its counterpart 40 years into the
agreement.”
According to the India-Bangladesh trade agreement, the two governments agreed to make mutually beneficial arrangements for the use of their waterways, railways and road ways for commerce between the two countries and for passage of goods between two places in one country through the territory of the other.
A trade expert in the commerce ministry said words like ‘for passage of goods between two places in one country through the territory of the other’ included in the trade agreement had so far been used only in India’s interests and not in the interest of Bangladesh.
Officials in the commerce ministry said the existing trade agreement would need an amendment by both sides once India accepted Bangladesh proposal.
