Bangladesh, India to finalise study on CEPA, open border haats soon

Staff Correspondent :    |    ০৪:০১ পিএম, ২০২২-০৩-০৫

Bangladesh and India have decided to finalise at the earliest the joint study on India-Bangladesh Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), reopen border haats closed due to Covid-19 pandemic and reached a consensus over the use of returning empty railway wagons and containers by Bangladesh for exports to its western neighbour.

The two countries also decided to implement the 24x7 Petrapole-Benapole operationalisation of the Integrated Check Post (ICP).

An official statement released today by the Indian Commerce Ministry said the meeting held in New Delhi yesterday had extensive discussions on a range of issues including development of railway infrastructure, port infrastructure multi-modal regional connectivity, harmonization of standards and mutual recognition agreement.

The Bangladesh delegation at the meeting was led by Senior Commerce Secretary Tapan Kanti Ghosh while the Indian team was headed by Commerce Secretary BVR Subrahmanyam.

Of the many issues discussed, progress was made in four areas, the statement said but there was no mention of anti-dumping duty on jute and jute products from Bangladesh, a key area of concern for Dhaka.

Taking note of the significant growth in bilateral trade in recent years–Bangladesh is the sixth largest trade partner of India—the two sides agreed to facilite trade through railways by developing container handling facility at Sirajganj Bazar for which a Detailed Project Proposal (DPP) has been approved.

The meeting also agreed on the construction of 900-metre new siding line at Benapole to facilitate railway goods traffic. It decided to allow import of all commodities from India by rail via Darsana and the construction of loading and unloading platform at Darshana.

A Detailed Project Proposal was approved at the meeting for development of rail and road-based integrated check depot at Ishwardi, Bangladesh.

The two sides reached a consensus on the use of returning empty railway wagons/containers by Bangladesh as this would reduce overall logistics cost of India's exports to Bangladesh.

Border Haats, which were closed due to Covid restrictions, would be opened soon, the meeting decided.The two sides will strengthen bilateral regional connectivity through multi-modal transport.

They will finalise at the earliest the feasibility study of CEPA between the two countries. The CEPA has been under discussion between Dhaka and Delhi for more than a year.

It was decided that the Bangladesh-India business CEO forum would have its first meeting soon. The meeting in Delhi yesterday was preceded by the 14th meeting of the Joint Working Group (JWG) on trade at the level of joint/additional commerce secretaries of India and Bangladesh on March 2-3 when comprehensive discussions were held on various areas of mutual interest.

The next meetings of the JWG and Commerce Secretaries will be held in Bangladesh at mutually convenient dates.