Deal allows passage of goods through one country into another
UNB, Dhaka
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s cabinet on Thursday decided to renew for three years the Bangladesh-India trade agreement, which allows passage of goods through one country into another under one of its provisions.
Endorsing another major step of the newly elected Awami League-led Grand Alliance government, the cabinet decided that a bilateral investment promotion and protection agreement would be signed with the next-door neighbor.
The approvals were given in a special meeting of the cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at the secretariat.
Abul Kalam Azad, press secretary to the Prime Minister, told reporters after the cabinet meeting that the President Ziaur Rahman government had first signed the trade agreement with India in 1980.
“Thereafter, the agreement was renewed by the past BNP government’s Finance Minister on March 21, 2006,” he said, apparently to dispel any misgiving about the renewal of the deal.
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), now in the opposition after their December 29 election debacle, is vocal against what they say this government’s move to give transit facility to India.
The trade agreement has 13 articles. The article 8 says: the two governments agreed to make mutual beneficent arrangements for the use of their waterways, roadways and railways for commerce between two the countries, for passage of goods between the places in one country through another.
Press Secretary Azad quoted premier Hasina as saying that 24 such agreements were signed before. “This type of agreement is good, and such an agreement is necessary.”
Regarding the agreed new deal with India on bilateral investment promotion and protection, the Prime Minister said the agreement is “aimed at the wellbeing of the people and the country”.
“My government will not hesitate to sign any such agreement for the welfare of the country,” said Sheikh Hasina, whose government enjoys sweeping powers with an overwhelming majority in the new parliament through winning the crucial elections with the slogan for a change.
Courtesy: thebangladeshtoday.com
