India's transshipment facilities may not benefit Bangladesh's traders

12 Dec '22

1 min read

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Bangladesh will hardly benefit from transshipment facilities by exporting its products via Indian territories, an assessment by the National Board of Revenue (NBR) found. Though India has expanded facilities by adding riverine routes to the land ones, Bangladeshi officials feel it is unlikely to augur well for their exporters due to loading-unloading hassles and time-consuming processes.

The Chattogram and Mongla seaports do already have similar facilities for exporting products from Bangladesh. NBR also pointed out that the Indian circular did not mention the fees and charges for transshipment facilities.

The NBR’s comments came in response to a request by Bangladesh’s commerce ministry while scrutinising the pros and cons of the extended facilities India announced recently.

Earlier in 2018, India had given the transshipment facilities to carry containerised cargoes by roads and railways, and utilise their specified Land Customs Stations (LCSs), seaports and airports, to export goods to third countries.

The bond submission provision is not logical in the context of international practice as the bond may be equal to applicable duty in accordance with the invoice of goods concerned, a Bangladeshi newspaper reported.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)

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