Political turbulence in Bangladesh cause loss for bilateral trade

SILIGURI: It is not only the trouble for Bangladesh, but for India too. The ongoing political crisis in Bangladesh is spoiling bilateral trade worth around Rs 2750 crore per month between the two south Asian neighbours. Equally affected, exporters and importers in both the sides of Indo-Bangla border are waiting for the situation to take a conducive shape.

“The situation has started taking truly adverse turn around a month back. The loss being taking place every day cannot be compensated even after restoration of normalcy,” said Ujjal Saha. Secretary West Bengal Exporters Coordination Committee (WBECC). “We are also equal victim of the situation,” said exporters from Bangladesh.

As the international trade statistics goes- Indian annual export to Bangladesh, as of 2011-12, is worth around Rs 30,000 crore while import from the other side is around Rs 3,000 crore. Major share of these take place through the 6 surface land customs stations and 3 Railway based dry ports in the border along West Bengal.

“Because of frequent and unpredicted bandhs and thus unavailability of vehicles inside Bangladesh border at al LCS, our cargo vehicles are facing trouble in getting unloaded there. Despite clearances of all papers in both sides, vehicles are remaining stranded for long. Against normal three days time taken by a vehicle from Malda in west Bengal to come back from Bangladesh via nearest LCS in Hili, or Mahadipur, now it is even over two weeks,” said Saha.

Miles long queue of stranded trucks in all the approach roads of all LCS has become a common visible sign of the chaos.

Huge volume of export consists of perishable items and those are getting soiled due to this delay causing heavy loss. In addition, exporters are being liable to pay heavy detention charge to transporters. WBECC has estimated the total bi lateral trade loss as worth around Rs 1,500 crore per month.

“The matter has already been discussed at Federation of Indian Export Organizations platform with a pledge to Government to take up the matter at diplomatic level. But we are yet to get any ray of hope,” said Saha.