Bangladesh may offer Chittagong port facility to India
Bangladesh may offer the use of its strategic Chittagong port to India for using the facility to transport goods from the landlocked northeast. Bangladesh could offer India the facility to use its southeastern Chittagong Port after upgrading its capacity to take the extra load, Commerce Minister Faruk Khan said. "There is no concept such as 'my port or your port' in this free world…The day is not far off when you (India) will be able to use Chittagong port as 'your port'," he told an Indian journalist from Tripura at eastern frontier town of Akhaura late yesterday.
Talking to the newsmen after joining a function to mark the launch of Bangladesh's brick export to Tripura at Akhaura border check-post complex, Khan said if Chittagong seaport had the capacity to take the load, there should not be any problem for India to use it for trade transaction. "If we have to stay together we have to help each other," the minister said.
Khan earlier said the southeastern Chittagong and southwestern Mongla seaports could be offered for use by the neighbouring countries to help boost regional trade in line with ruling Awami League's election manifesto.
"The issue of transit to India could be solved through bilateral discussion," Khan said, after sending off the first consignment of 400 million bricks to Tripura.
New Delhi has a long pending proposal seeking to use the Bangladesh's port facilities alongside the road transit but no major headway in this regard was witnessed in the past years in view of what analysts said "sensitivity" in bilateral relations.
Talking to the newsmen after joining a function to mark the launch of Bangladesh's brick export to Tripura at Akhaura border check-post complex, Khan said if Chittagong seaport had the capacity to take the load, there should not be any problem for India to use it for trade transaction. "If we have to stay together we have to help each other," the minister said.
Khan earlier said the southeastern Chittagong and southwestern Mongla seaports could be offered for use by the neighbouring countries to help boost regional trade in line with ruling Awami League's election manifesto.
"The issue of transit to India could be solved through bilateral discussion," Khan said, after sending off the first consignment of 400 million bricks to Tripura.
New Delhi has a long pending proposal seeking to use the Bangladesh's port facilities alongside the road transit but no major headway in this regard was witnessed in the past years in view of what analysts said "sensitivity" in bilateral relations.
