Foreign Policy Blogs

Bangladesh, Nepal Sign Transit Deal, Likely Increase Trade

In another mutual advantage move, Bangladesh and Nepal have signed a deal that will very likely increase bilateral trade between the two countries.  A transit deal, including a transport route worked out in Dhaka–and finalized in early 2011– will increase transport and tourism between the two countries.

The deal initially made in 1976 will finally allow Nepal access another port, Mongla.  Till now, landlocked Nepal had easiest access to the port in the Indian city of Kolkata.  Indeed, this agreement has spillover effects: getting the most mileage out of the deal would compel the government to hammer out a similar deal with India.  Bangladeshi goods cannot travel up the road to Nepal, as can Nepal, without first clarifying long outstanding road use issues with the government of India.

This move is then mostly mutual advantage with imbedded triggers that forces the sitting government to reach out to its nearest neighbor India.  Were that every other piece of public policy were so efficient!

 

Author

Faheem Haider

Faheem Haider is a political analyst, writer and artist. He holds advanced research degrees in political economy, political theory and the political economy of development from the London School of Economics and Political Science and New York University. He also studied political psychology at Columbia University. During long stints away from his beloved Washington Square Park, he studied peace and conflict resolution and French history and European politics at the American University in Washington DC and the University of Paris, respectively.

Faheem has research expertise in democratic theory and the political economy of democracy in South Asia. In whatever time he has to spare, Faheem paints, writes, and edits his own blog on the photographic image and its relationship to the political narrative of fascist, liberal and progressivist art.

That work and associated writing can be found at the following link: http://blackandwhiteandthings.wordpress.com