Bangladesh and India will fix the transit fees as per WTO rules in exchange for facilitating connectivity for India’s land-locked northeastern states, Finance Minister AMA Muhith has said.
“During the visit of the Indian Prime Minister, the issue (transit fee) was discussed…the two countries will now finalise the arrangement over the fees in line with the WTO rules,” Muhith said yesterday.
Speaking at a business conference here, he said the transit fees would include the infrastructure development costs as well for the sub-regional connectivity involving Bhutan and Nepal in line with talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his counterpart Sheikh Hasina.
According to the summit outcome, Bangladesh could have direct routes to Nepal and Bhutan while India would get access to its isolated northeastern region, virtually opening a new horizon of sub-regional economic connectivity.
Muhith’s comments cleared speculation among foreign policy experts and business analysts about the connectivity arrangements reached between Dhaka and New Delhi during Modi’s maiden tour to Bangladesh early this month.
Meanwhile, former premier and Bangladesh Nationalist Party chief Khaleda Zia said Dhaka must impose transit fees in exchange for providing the neighbour the connectivity facility to its North-East using Bangladesh territory.
Muhith, however, explained Bangladesh’s position as regards the calculations on the fee saying referring to Bangladesh-Bhutan connectivity “as an example”. “In this case the road has to be reconstructed alongside installing power-transmission line. There is some cost involvement here. With this a charge will be included,” he said.
Asked by a businessman whether Chittagong and Mongla seaports were ready to be used as transit, Muhith said the south-eastern Chittagong port was already in use for the transit and “we are developing the (south-western) Mongla port for importing coal. Nearly one year will be needed for visibility of transit activities.”
-thetribuneindia.com
