B'desh offers Rohalpur railway transit to Nepal

B'desh offers Rohalpur railway transit to Nepal
eKantipur.com, 8-Oct-07

Bangladesh on Monday agreed to allow Nepal to use Rohalpur as a new transit route to facilitate bilateral and third-country trade. However, it refused to extend duty-free market access for agricultural and primary goods on a unilateral basis as Nepal had requested.

“Bangladesh has already cut the duty to zero on some items, for others we are willing to go for a preferential trading arrangement,” said Bangladeshi Commerce Secretary Feroz Ahmed at the conclusion of the three-day commerce secretary-level bilateral talks Monday.

Nepal had handed over a list of 21 groups of products, mostly agricultural and primary goods, to Bangladeshi Commerce Ministry officials requesting duty-free entry facility for them in Bangladesh.

Officiating Nepali Commerce Secretary Purushottam Ojha said the three-day trade talks were successful as the two sides agreed to improve connectivity and harmonize transit and trading procedures at the earliest in order to facilitate bilateral trade.

“Most importantly, we came up with a working document for operating the transit facility provided to us,” he said. He added that the two sides would hold the next round of talks within two months to finalize the modality.

Although Nepal and Bangladesh signed a bilateral transit treaty in 1976, the two countries have not developed a working modality yet. This has rendered trading through the Kakarbhitta-Fulbari-Banglabandh route difficult, thus discouraging bilateral commerce.

On Monday, the Nepali and Bangladeshi commerce secretaries signed a memorandum agreeing to do away with the constraints seen in the movement of cargo vehicles, among others.

Talking to the Post, Ojha said that Bangladesh has agreed to facilitate entry of Nepali vehicles from the zero point on the Indo-Bangladesh border to the Banglabandh dry port in Bangladesh to facilitate two-way trade.

At present, Nepali exporters are required to transship their goods at the zero point where customs and other facilities are absent. This has been creating unnecessary hassles for traders.

As for the newly-offered transit route, Ojha said Rohalpur is a railway-based route, which can be connected with the Birgunj inland container depot via Singhbad in India. “We will have to talk with India for operationalizing it,” he said.

If India responds positively, it will link Nepal with Bangladesh's broad-gauge railway network, thereby facilitating better trading conditions for entrepreneurs.

Bangladesh also pledged to extend infrastructure and logistics support to Nepali export and import cargoes to lure entrepreneurs to conduct third-country trade via the Chittagong and Mangla ports.

Talking to the press, Ahmed further said that the two sides also agreed to exchange business delegations to facilitate business-to-business contacts.

Bangladesh is organizing a single-country trade fair in Kathmandu in December. The Nepali business community will also be taking part in trade fairs in Bangladesh, according to the officials.