Northeast India–Bangladesh Border Trade Practices

Abstract

In the recent years the geographical land-lockedness of the northeast India (NEI) is being looked upon differently. Efforts are being made to convert the region into the ‘land linked’ from the ‘land-locked’ so that it can make faster economic progress through effective utilization of contiguous markets of Bangladesh, Myanmar and beyond. Policy level initiatives are rolled out so that NEI, as a whole, does not remain a burdensome periphery to the country. This article, against the aforesaid background, characterizes the trade interweaving between three states of NEI and Bangladesh and empirically identifies the commodities responsible for constituting trade flow and its variation over a long period of time in respect of concerned NEI states. This article indicates that commodity diversity in NEI–Bangladesh trade has been very minimal though volume of trade increased over the years. The rise of exports from Assam and Meghalaya are almost totally dependent on trade of natural resources like coal and limestone. Characteristically, the trade pattern between Tripura and Bangladesh is different from the other two states of NEI where commodity diversity is more. In addition, only few trade points (land customs stations) across the international border are handling the bulk of trade while others are not used at all.