Bangladesh to boost trade, ties with northeast

AGARTALA - Bangladesh will upgrade its diplomatic offices in northeast India to boost trade and people-to-people contact with the region, officials said here Wednesday.

“The Bangladesh government has approved plans to upgrade its mission in Agartala to deputy high commission level,” first secretary and head of Bangladesh’s Agartala mission (visa office) Mohammad Abu Taher Mondal told reporters.

Mondal said Bangladesh also expected to increase its volume of export to Tripura to Rs.300 crore during the current financial year.

He said that in 2007-08, Bangladesh had exported goods worth Rs.84.15 crore to Tripura and imported commodities worth Rs.1.51 crore from the state.

Northeastern states like Tripura, Meghalaya and Assam export commodities like limestone, tea, machine parts, fruit and coal to Bangladesh and import cement, stone chips, bricks, Hilsa fish, dry fish, edible oils, readymade garments and furniture from the country.

Bangladesh’s deputy high commission in Kolkata recently held camps at Siliguri in West Bengal and Guwahati in Assam for visa seekers.

Bangladesh High Commissioner to India Tariq A. Karim, during his recent visit to Tripura, said that he had asked his government to set up deputy high commissions at Mumbai, Chennai and Guwahati.

“If more Indians are willing to go to Bangladesh frequently, visa camps would be held in different places in northeast and eastern India more often,” said Karim, accompanied by Bangladesh’s deputy high commissioner to India Mustafizur Rahman.

The Agartala visa office, set up in 1974 and upgraded in 1990, is the only Bangladesh mission in northeast India.