Dhaka seeks Myanmar land for crop cultivation

Commerce Minister Altaf Hossain Chowdhury made the overture to his Myanmar counterpart Tin Naing Thein at a meeting at the commerce ministry.

Emerging from the meeting, Altaf told the newsmen that three issues - commercial use of Myanmar lands, relaxing the visa procedure and non-conventional shipping agreement came up for discussion.

He said that Bangladesh would go for commercial cultivation of various types of crops or invest in other sectors in Myanmar if the Army-ruled country leases out some of its forlorn land to Bangladesh.

"They have huge unplanted land and the size of their population is also small. If they respond to our proposal positively, then new agreement will be signed and the produced crops or goods would be imported to Bangladesh through buy-back formalities," Altaf said.

The two sides agreed in principal to relax the visa process and extend its duration for the business people for their uninterrupted stay in the two countries for boosting bilateral trade, he added.

Myanmar issues visa for Bangladeshi nationals with only three-day stay permit while Bangladesh gives visa to any citizen to stay here for 15 days.

Altaf said the meeting also agreed to amend the existing Coastal Shipping Agreement to facilitate easy and cost-effective movement of ships between the two countries.

"After the amendment, the non-conventional ships will be allowed to move toward the Chittagong port via Teknaf and it will reduce the carrying time and cost as well," he said.

Tin Naing Thein said the discussions focused on increasing the bilateral trade relations between the two friendly countries.

Bangladesh fetched 4.18 million US dollar through exporting different commodities to Myanmar in 2004-2005 fiscal year while the bills for imports from Myanmar amounted to 32.66 million US dollar during the same period.

Thus Dhaka's bilateral trade with Yangon is heavly tilted in favour of Myanmar.