Dhaka, July 8 : Bangladesh will offer Chittagong and Mongla ports for use to its South Asian neighbours, developing them as regional trade hubs, a minister has said.
“There is no reason why cotton from Pakistan could not be directly brought or trucks laden with goods from Nepal could not directly be imported to Bangladesh or why north east Indian states will remain landlocked when we have the Chittagong port,” Commerce Minister, Col. (retd.) Faruk Khan said Tuesday.
He reiterated the government’s stand and the ruling Awami League’s poll promise made last December in the face of “na�ve and negative mindset” being displayed by the opposition parties.
Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its Islamist ally Jamaat-e-Islami have opposed any move that allows India’s north-eastern region easy success to the sea.
“Trade should not be used as a political weapon. Doing business with India or Pakistan is not tantamount to sacrificing sovereignty,” Khan told a seminar on regional cooperation.
“Today, people have rejected the politics of corruption and terrorism. Politicians will have to follow them and work for increasing regional trade for mutual benefit of all the nations of South Asia,” the minister told economists and analysts attending the meet.
“We were regionally connected among ourselves even during and before the Mughal period,” New Age newspaper quoted Khan as saying Wednesday.
The Sheikh Hasina government that came to power in the poll is also bracing to reverse Zia’s policies on Bangladesh’s connectivity with Asian Highway and Asian railway networks.
— IANS