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Trade with neighbours to soar come 2029
FROM PAGE 1
provide $1.03 billion, with the rest coming in from the governments of Bangladesh and Nepal. Of the $1.03 billion that the multilateral lender is allocating to the phase 1 of the programme, Bangladesh will get $753.45 million and Nepal $275 million. Both the loans have been sanctioned by the WB board in June.
The $753.45 million given to Bangladesh will go towards projects to be implemented by the Bangladesh Land Port Authority, the National Board of Revenue and the Road and Highways Department for completion by 2029.
One of the components involves upgrading the 43-kilometre two-lane Sylhet-Charkai-Sheola road to a climate-resilient four-lane road, connecting the Sheola land port with the Dhaka-Sylhet Highway and in so doing, cutting down the travel time by 30 percent.
The programme will support digital systems, infrastructure and more streamlined processes at Benapole, Bhomra, and Burimari land ports, the three largest land ports in Bangladesh handling approximately 80 percent of land-based trade.
There is little communication (electronic or otherwise) between the customs and the Bangladesh Land Port Authority on what goods are present at any given time at the land ports.
Arriving goods for import are normally discharged from trucks and unless they are perishable, are stored in warehouses under the jurisdiction of the BLPA before customs clearance begins.
This has created a system of “border men” that collect documents from truck drivers on the Indian side of the border before arrival, and “proxy” customs and freight (C&F) agents standing in line to ensure that the slot is kept while the C&F agents interact with the NBR or other government agencies elsewhere.
Such human facilitation highlights the need for improved processes, which the project will address.
The project will support the development and improvement of IT-enabled services for trade, to reduce touch points and human interaction, enhance transparency and reduce congestion and truck idling, resulting in faster border clearance time and greater cargo throughput.
Electronic tracking of truck entry and exit, electronic queuing and smart parking would be installed.
It will also support the modernisation of the Chattogram customs house, which handles 90 percent of all import/export declarations in Bangladesh and services more than 45,700 unique traders per year.
The rapidly growing trade volumes have overburdened the Custom House, Chattogram, which was initially constructed in 1920.
Subsequently, the project will entail constructing a state-of-the-art green-building certified, resilient Custom House Chattogram with enhanced capacity to process rapidly growing trade volumes with required infrastructure, collaborative laboratory and other facilities including facilities for women.
It will also support the country’s implementation of the World Trade Organisation’s Trade Facilitation Agreement and Customs Modernisation Strategic Action Plan and preparation for the Motor Vehicles Agreement (MVA) implementation.
The MVA was signed on June 15, 2015 by the transport ministers of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal. The agreement will permit the member states to ply their vehicles in each other’s territory for transportation of cargo and passengers, including third country transport and personal vehicles.
But due to the lack of necessary infrastructure, MVA is yet to take off.
Bangladesh’s export competitiveness will increase and importers will be helped, too, Rahman said.
“Both the consumers and producers would be benefited.”
The WB programme will not only lead to trade facilitation but will also help in drawing in investment from abroad.
“The government has dedicated special economic zones for Indian and Chinese investors but those are not attracting the expected investment. It is because the border-crossing infrastructure and logistics facilitation are missing. If I have to pay 1.5 times more to send the products to Nepal, why should I come here? So it is a very important project.”

UN experts slam Israel’s ‘harassment’

in West Bank
AFP, GENEVA
UN experts yesterday slammed Israel’s “harassment” of human rights defenders and humanitarian workers in the occupied West Bank’s Masafer Yatta villages, where Israel has a military zone.
The special rapporteurs insisted such harassment must stop, and said residents continue to be threatened by the risk of forcible transfer, including mass forced evictions and arbitrary displacement.
“Israeli authorities’ hubris is proving without limits. They are even harassing human rights defenders and humanitarian workers seeking to support and protect people facing grave human rights violations in Masafer Yatta,” the four experts said in a joint statement.
“This is a direct assault on the core of human rights and international humanitarian law... this also confirms that impunity over abuse of power fosters power to abuse.”
The case of Masafer Yatta -- or Firing Zone 918 -- an agricultural area near Hebron, has been one of Israel’s longest running legal battles.
In the early 1980s the army declared the 30-square-kilometre (12-square-mile) territory a restricted military area and claimed it was uninhabited.
Residents of eight villages had been in court for around 20 years fighting Israeli government efforts to evict them.
But in May this year, Israel’s High Court approved the eviction of Palestinian villagers to make way for a military training zone.
“The tragic implications of that decision are now before our eyes: roughly 1,200 Palestinian residents in Masafer Yatta are left defenceless in front of the threat of forced eviction and arbitrary displacement,” said the experts, who do not speak for the United Nations but are mandated to report their findings to it.
The statement was penned by a special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory as well as rapporteurs on internally displaced persons, adequate housing, and the situation of human rights defenders.
They voiced dismay at reports that human rights defenders and humanitarian workers have been harassed by the Israeli military in Masafer Yatta.
“They have been stopped and detained for several hours at checkpoints and had their identification documents or cars confiscated, often on grounds that they had entered a closed military site without permission,” their statement said.
The experts expressed particular concern for Sami Hureini, a prominent human rights defender and member of the “Youth of Sumud” activist group “engaged in peaceful resistance against illegal settlements in the southern Hebron hills”.
On June 28, he was reportedly arrested at a checkpoint in Masafer Yatta and detained by the military for several hours, the experts said.
“He is currently being tried in the Ofer Military Court for allegedly obstructing and assaulting a soldier and entering a closed military zone, following his participation in a peaceful demonstration on 8 January 2021,” they said.
Hureini’s attorney, Riham Nasra, said her legal team has presented “hundreds of photos and videos” to disprove the allegations against her client.
“Five activists who were near Sami during the protest testified that at no point did Sami resort to violence,” Nasra told AFP in a statement.
The Israeli military and the country’s foreign ministry did not immediately comment on the remarks by the UN experts.