From the transport of Indian goods through riverways, the initial earning of Bangladesh’s inland water transport business will be $1.5bn annually, said officials who however stressed the need to take efforts to popularise the route.
They said transport owners were planning to publish advertisements on the Indian shipping journals in a bid to attract businesses there.
“If the waterway route becomes popular, the trade deficit between Bangladesh and India will ease with the full implementation of Inland Water Transport Protocol Agreement,” said a shipping ministry official.
The two countries in November’s last week signed a standard operating procedure (SOP) in New Delhi to implement the agreement.
“If Indian businessmen use waterway instead of 4,500-km long roadway, both cost and time needed for transporting goods will reduce to one-third,” AKM Mahfuz, chairman of Gulfsea Ways Limited, told the Dhaka Tribune.
He said the Indian government planned to advertise in newspapers for attracting businessmen to use waterway to transport goods through Bangladesh territory.
He said the use of waterway route would also help to flourish different businesses and create employments.
AKM Mahfuz stressed that the waterway “is also safe to carry goods as it is free from effects of political unrest or strikes.”
He estimated that there would be a total of 2.6m tonnes of cargo to earn about $36m
He added: “Bangladesh’s strategic position in waterway is good like Singapore seaport where most of ships and vessels come from European countries and the US to drop their commodities in Singapore.”
“Singapore is now a highly developed trade-oriented market economy but it’s economy relies on value addition for full operation of seaport. So we want to follow the path of Singapore.”
Mahfuz said Bangladesh seaports don’t receive ships loaded with more than 10,000 tonnes of goods while Singapore seaport receives 100,000 tonnes.”
Bangladesh gave India transit on the river route under the amended river protocol signed during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Bangladesh in June.
According to an estimate, movement of ships loaded with around 1.5m tonnes of goods - mostly food grains, fertiliser and industrial raw materials - are possible to take place through the designated river routes under the IWT protocol. The transit charge is now fixed at the rate of Tk347 or $4.4 per tonne of goods as decided by the government consultant with Indian counterpart.
Under the river protocol, India has prioritised one river route: from the Indian port of Kolkata to Ashuganj. From Ashuganj, the cargoes cross the Indian border by road.
Bangladeshi trucks are now carrying cargoes transshipped from rivercraft at Sherpur and Ashuganj to the Indian border, according to the agreement.