Dr Mujibur Rahman, former Chairman of Bangladesh’s Tariff Commission and former Chief Executive Officer of the Foreign Trade Institute says, if I take Bangladesh as the centre, then its radius can spread from Visakhapatnam out to Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and on to China. Bangladesh is an ideal location for transit. The other seaports nearby are not like Bangladesh. If we can astutely and skillfully utilise this, we will stand to gain hugely. Switzerland uses such an advantage in Europe. I am in favour of the Swiss transit model. They earn over one billion dollars a year just through transit.
In the South Asia region, we have communication by air and waterways, but not by road or railway. Bangladesh is not connected with Myanmar, Nepal or Bhutan. Nor are we connected with India or China. A bit further on, we are not connected with Pakistan or Afghanistan either.
With transit facilities of Chittagong Port and Mongla Port being granted to India, initially it may seem that India is benefitting more by transit and Bangladesh less. But once transit starts in full swing, Bangladesh will gain much more, even more than Singapore. We are well aware of Singapore’s condition in the seventies. Now it is a transit hub. If Bangladesh becomes a transit hub too, trade and commerce will increase manifold. The question is whether we want to take future Bangladesh to that point.
Transit to Nepal & Bhutan
The journey has just started. We will next get such transit facilitated with Nepal and Bhutan too. Our vehicles will travel over India to Nepal. The manner in which Indian businesspersons are sending goods from the Indian mainland to the northeast states, they themselves will call for an extension of these transit facilities. After all, the Kolkata isn’t very conveniently located. They will put pressure on their government to use Chittagong and Mongla ports. It is not just that the Indian government wanted transit that it came through. We need the revenue too. If we can increase the capacity of Chittagong Port further, we can send goods to Myanmar and China too from here.
