do you call that economy?
Bangladesh's exports to Tripura through Akhaura land port might fall after the government granted transhipment facility to India and the recent improvements in infrastructure on the Indian side, local businesspeople said.
India was reliant on imports from Bangladesh for a number of products, said Monir Hossain Babul, general secretary of Akhaura Clearing & Forwarding Agents' Association.
“Now, because of the transhipment facility they would no longer need to import the products from Bangladesh. They will just bring them from the other parts of India,” Babul said.
Opened in 2010, the Akhaura land port is mainly used for exports. The export items are stone, cement, waste cotton, fish, plastic and various household products. Stone is the most exported item.
Local businesspeople import boulders from India to Sylhet at $10 a tonne. Boulders are then crushed and re-exported to India's northeastern states at $25 per tonne.
Exports to Tripura fell as the shipment of stone went down, they said.
Some 2.77 lakh tonnes of goods were exported between the months of January and May, down 7.66 percent from a year earlier, according to Akhaura revenue office statistics.
Earlier, a broad gauge rail line ran from Kolkata to Karimganj in Assam. Now, a broad gauge rail line from Karimganj to Agartola has been set up. As a result, Tripura has been connected with the rest of India.
The demand for stone in Tripura and its nearby areas is met through imports from Karimganj, which pushed down the import from Bangladesh, Babul said.
“Besides, the transit facility granted to India might affect our exports.”
Another C&F agent Abbas Uddin Bhuiyan said a new product, iron rod produced by a Bangladeshi steelmaker, has created its markets in the northeastern states.
But the first consignment that India has transhipped from Kolkata to Tripura comprised of iron rods, said Bhuiyan, adding that the transhipment facility may reduce the scope for exports for Bangladesh.
He said 100 to 150 trucks carrying export goods from Bangladesh used to cross the Akhaura border every day. Now, the number has come down to 10-12.
A customs official in Akhaura, however, said trucks laden with Bangladeshi products ply in high numbers during the dry seasons, with the number sometimes rising above 100 per day. But during the rainy season, it averages 20.
http://www.thedailystar.net/business/exports-northeast-india-may-fall-transhipment-1243009
your entire exports is very low, you are saying grabbing NE into BD economy!!!!