Chittagong Port

Chittagong Port

News: EAM Dr. S Jaishankar, recently visited Bangladesh and had a meeting with PM Sheikh Hasina on April 28, 2022. An important development emerged out of the meetings. PM Sheikh Hasina has reportedly have told that India’s northeastern states could use Bangladesh’s Chittagong Port.

Chittagong Port:
• The Chittagong/Chattogram Port is the main seaport of Bangladesh.
• It is located in the port city of Chittagong and on the banks of the Karnaphuli River,
• The port handles eighty percent of Bangladesh’s export-import trade, and has been used by India, Nepal and Bhutan for transshipment.
• According to Lloyd’s, it ranked as the 58th busiest container port in the world in 2019. The port is one of the oldest in the world.
• Chittagong Port is now being developed and modernized with Chinese investment and help. It was widely believed that China will retain the right to use this port according to its plans and needs.

How can access to the port benefit India?
• Partition of the Indian subcontinent left India’s Northeast without direct access to the sea. Still, the region was able to access ports in erstwhile East Pakistan till the 1965 war. In the decades since, the states of Northeast India have used an overland route via the narrow Siliguri Corridor to Kolkata Port.
• The route from the Northeast to Chittagong port is shorter than the route to Kolkata port.
• The distance from Agartala in the state of Tripura to Kolkata port is about 1,600 km while to Chittagong it is just 450 km. Transport of cargo to Chittagong port will therefore take less time and cost less as well.
• Lend a fillip to multi-modal connectivity between India and Bangladesh
• Ease stress on supply chains that have been disrupted by the pandemic
• Important bridge for India to reach Southeast Asia, East Asia and beyond. Thus it will further help India’s Act East Policy.
• India’s relentless efforts to get such access resulted in Bangladesh signing a Memorandum of Understanding in 2015 and eventually a treaty in 2018. However, apart from conducting a trial run there has been no progress in this regard.
• Bangladesh’s location in the Bay of Bengal, which is the northern extension of the strategically important Indian Ocean, has made Bangladesh the focus of several global and regional powers including the U.S., China, Japan, and India.
• Thus, to contain Chinese presence in the Indo-Pacific region, the QUAD was formed. Both India and US have been pressing Dhaka to the join QUAD.

Emphasizing on connectivity is crucial not just to achieve economic gains but also to be part of global supply chain and having an upper hand as far as our geopolitical interests are concerned. Bangladesh is extremely important in our neighborhood first policy. To maintain our presence across the Indian subcontinent and beyond in the SouthEast Asian region, having access to port cities is necessary.