New Belonia-Feni land port to promote Bangladesh exports to India: IBCCI

The newly established Belonia-Feni land port is being inaugurated today (Sunday) to open a new avenue for Bangladeshi entrepreneurs for exporting more commodities to the northeastern region of India.
The new land port would help Bangladesh increase its export to India amounting to one billion US dollar by 2011, which would ultimately reduce Bangladesh’s trade deficit with India.
India-Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce and Industry (IBCCI), Feni Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Tripura Chamber of Commerce and Industry have jointly been organizing the inauguration ceremony.
President of IBCCI Abdul Matlub Ahmad said this at a press briefing at the auditorium of FBCCI here this morning.
Minister for Shipping M Shahjahan Khan will inaugurate the port as the chief guest while Finance Minister of Tripura Badal Chowdhury, Commerce and Industry Minister Jitendra Chaudhury will attend the function.
Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh Pinak Ranjan Chakraborty, Lalit Kumar Gupta, Tripura’s Principal Secretary and ML Debnath, President of Tripura Chamber will also join the function from Indian side, Abdul Matlub Ahmad said.
From Bangladesh side, Secretary of the Shipping Ministry KM Haroon, Chairman of Land Port Feroz Shah Alam and other high government officials along with a large number of business community members will attend the function, he said.
The commencement of the land port would greatly benefit Bangladeshi exporters and importers as the entrepreneurs especially from Feni, Noakhali and Chittagong have better access to the market of northeast India, IBCCI President said.
“This would help promote bilateral trade and investment between India and Bangladesh in the backdrop of existing huge trade imbalance which is at present in favor of India,” he said.
He said the IBCCI is working for the last three years targeting to reduce the trade gaps between India and Bangladesh by setting up over 100 joint venture Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Bangladesh with a view to encourage transfer of technology and boost re-export of goods to India.
The new land port would help increase Bangladesh’s export to India as more items like ship breaking scraps, cement and marine products would be added to the export basket of Bangladesh, Matlub Ahmad said.
At present, Bangladesh exports processed food, agro-based products, fish and fish products, ceramic products, stone chips, toiletries, cosmetics, plastic goods to India, he added.
Besides, Bangladesh would be able to import minerals, edible oil through this port, he added.
Mentioning that infrastructure facilities in most of land ports in the country are inadequate for smooth functioning of international trade, he demanded the government for constructing roads for transportation of goods, ensuring banking facility and making quality building to house customs offices at the land ports.
Getting visa in both Bangladesh and India is getting more difficult day by day, he said and urged both the governments for making visa procedure easier.
Among others, vice president of IBCCI Dewan Sultan Ahmed, director Md NS Kabir and FBCCI directors Mahbubul Islam Runu, Md Jalal Uddin and Farukul Islam Shuvo were present at the press conference.

Courtesy of BSS, Dhaka