Maritime Victory and Economic Development: Bangladesh

Abstract

The maritime victory is termed as the biggest achievement after independence. Though the nation attained a sovereign county through a nine month long liberation war in December 16 1971, the boundary of the country – especially maritime boundary was not clearly identified. Many attempts have been taken to trace boundary with neighboring countries – India & Myanmar. During 1974 Bangladesh had signed on a MoU with Burma, in which both countries agreed that Bangladesh would have 12 nm as territorial sea. However further progress had not come in light. The unfinished deal with Myanmar had made lots of difficulties for Bangladesh. The country could have not used its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) fully. Since the EEZ is assumed to be abundant with gas along with other natural resources, the country has divided the area into 28 blocks for exploring gas and oil. When the plane was going to be implemented, Myanmar disputed claiming the ownership of at least 10 blocks in the Bay-of-Bengal. As a result the project had been postponed. Along with the dispute, NASAKA (Burma’s border security force) prevented Bangladeshi fisherman from fishing in the Bay-of-Bengal. Finally Bangladesh decided to go to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) for demarcating its maritime boundary from Myanmar’s dispute. After a couple of hearings at the ITLOS, from September 8 to 24 last year, in Hamburg, Bangladesh won the historic verdict against Myanmar on March 14, resulting in some 1,11,000 sq. km of the Bay-of-Bengal coming under its control. Many economists and researchers opined the victory as a blessing for our economy, which will help Bangladesh significantly for becoming a middle income country by 2020.