We welcome the emphasis put by the West Bengal chief minister during her visit this week on the need for improving infrastructure and road link connectivity between Bangladesh and India.
It provides a key test for measuring progress on improving regional connectivity.
Dhaka and Kolkata are two of the biggest cities in the world. However closely connected they may be through history and plane flights, nothing illustrates the reality of our region’s poor connectivity more than the slow speeds of trains and buses linking these two cities.
For talks by Saarc committees on reducing non-tariff barriers and overcoming technical hurdles limiting the flow of trains and cars across borders to show real results, new vision and investment is needed to increase the speed of roads and trains between major population centres.
It is to be hoped that signs of new progress by Bangladesh and India on resolving boundary and water-sharing issues will complement BCIM and Bimstec moves to grow regional trade and boost regional connectivity.
However slowly international links progress, there is no reason for the government not to seize opportunities, such as the proposal by a Chinese firm to build a new train line between Chittagong and Dhaka. Bangladesh’s economy needs faster internal links to make the most of our potential.
In the longer term, we also need politicians in the region to show real vision by building faster cross-border transport links. Boosting trade and co-operation needs convenient transport links as well as political commitment to bring prosperity for all our region’s people.