The border haat along the border between Kurigram in Bangladesh and Meghalaya in India was inaugurated on Saturday with the aim of enhancing cooperation between the two neighbouring countries.
Commerce minister Muhammad Faruk Khan, and his Indian counterpart Anand Sharma, jointly launched the first trading of local products of the two countries on the border by hoisting their national flags and listening respectfully to their national anthems.
Both the ministers expressed the hope that the operation of the weekly border market would enhance cooperation and friendship between the two countries and benefit the locals who are living along the border.
Lawmakers, politicians and officials from Bangladesh and India, along with other notables, were present at the launching ceremony.
Rajibpur's upazila nirbahi officer and member of the haat committee, Abdul Kader, said that the weekly market would sit on Wednesdays from 10:00am to 4:00pm in the summer, and 10:00am to 3.00pm in the winter. The market will come into full operation from July 27 (Wednesday).
People living within 5 kilometres of the weekly market would be allowed to trade here after obtaining special identity cards, he added.
Some 300 people from each country are initially allowed to enter the haat while 25 traders from each country will sell products. Each person can buy goods worth up to Tk 3000 or $ 50.
Officials estimated that bilateral trade worth $ 20 million would take place annually through the border haat.
The joint weekly market has been set up on four bighas of no man's land where locally produced vegetables, fruits, fruit juice, processed foods, spices, bamboo, bamboo grass, products of local cottage industries like gamchha, lungi, garments and melamine products, small agricultural tools like ploughs, axes, spades and sickles, etc, will be traded.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, during her visit to New Delhi in January 2010, agreed with her Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh that the border haats would be established 'on a pilot basis' in some selected places along the India-Bangladesh border.
The two countries signed an agreement on 23 October, 2010 to set up two border haats initially, allowing each other's trucks into their territories to carry goods up to the warehouses.
As per the Memorandum of Understanding, the two countries have listed 47 items — locally grown agricultural and manufactured products—for trading in the haat.
Both Bangladeshi taka and Indian rupee will be accepted in the haats and trade will be duty-free, according to the deal between the two countries.
Apart from the border haat on Baliamari-Kalaichar border, another will come into operation at Lauwaghar in Sunamganj district of Bangladesh and Balat in the East Khasi Hills district of the Indian state of Meghalaya. A number of similar weekly markets will be set up in due course, according to officials.
The informal trade that continued along the borders even after partition in 1947 was snapped during the Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971.
Our correspondent from Kurigram reported that commerce minister Faruk Khan had said that the friendship between the two neighbouring countries would be strengthened with the beginning of the border haats. Trade and business will also be extended, he added.
Ananda Sharma, the Indian minister for industry and commerce, said that border haats would enhance cooperation between the two countries and give the people of the two nations the scope to increase interaction between each other.
He said that a similar weekly market would be opened in the Maghalaya province in October this year.
Meghalaya's chief minister Mukul Sangma, Bangladeshi lawmakers Md Zakir Hossain, Md Zafar Ali and Ahmed Nazmin Sultana, and Indian lawmaker Abdus Saleh, director general of foreign trade Anuk K Pujari, chief secretary of Meghalaya WMF Parijat and other officials attended the inauguration ceremony.
Many people from various parts of the district gathered there to see the inaugural ceremony of the border haat.
Kurigram's deputy commissioner Md Habibur Rahman said that the necessary infrastructural facilities had been provided for the joint weekly market on the border.
Soruce : New Age
