India is the largest export partner of Bangladesh, more so than Japan and China. Joint secretary (Bangladesh and Myanmar) in the Union Ministry of External Affairs Ms. Smita Pant said this at Agartala today.
She was addressing a program on regional cooperation, titled, “Exploring new trade routes: India’s North East to the Bay of Bengal via Bangladesh Transit Agreement,” held in Agartala.
While addressing the stakeholders under several government departments and agencies from the both sides in the meet Ms Pant said that the export volume of Bangladesh has received a big momentum, with curently touching a new hight from 450 million US dollars to 2 billion US dollars. Highlighting the surge in bilateral trade relations and cooperation in multi modal ways between two nations, she said the Agartala-Akhaura rail link project is nearing completion on the Indian side and work is progressing on the Bangladesh side. It is expected that the new rail link will be inaugurated by the end of this year. This will be the seventh rail link connecting India with Bangladesh.
The other five operational railway lines between the two countries are Petrapole to Benapole, Gede to Darshana, Singhabad to Rohanpur, Radhikapur to Birol and Haldibari to Chilahati. The seventh rail line with Bangladesh will connect Assam.
It is hoped that in near future the bilateral trades would increase manifold as both the countries are planning to open more road and railway links for goods and passenger transportation. And , as the things stand, Tripura will be the most benefited as it will be in all intents and purposes the gateway to South Asia for the entire North East India.
