Smuggling from B’desh to India on the rise

Dhaka, February 12:

Smuggling of fertiliser, edible oil and petroleum pr-oducts from Bangl-adesh to neighbouring India and Myanmar is on the rise, pu-tting an adverse impact on the Bangladeshi economy, said a government report.

Local daily Financial Express today quoted the report prepared by the home ministry as saying that the rise in smuggling was posing a serious threat to the economy, as the country had been forced to spend huge amount of hard earned foreign exchange on importing those essential commodities.

“Smuggling of fertiliser and petroleum products to India and Myanmar has risen,” stated the report, “Edible oil is the new commodity that has also been added to the smugglers’ list.” The ministry has decided to form community motivation committees at the district level to help prevent smuggling.

Without motivating people and businessmen, it will be difficult to check the smuggling, the ministry said. Economies of different countries, including Bangladesh, have been hit by the rise in prices of petroleum products in the international markets since last year.

The country’s annual import bill has almost doubled over the period.

Bangladesh is facing difficulty to arrange over $2 billion to meet oil import bill for the current year. The annual demand for fe-rtiliser is about 3.7 million tonnes. Two million tonnes of fertiliser is imported both by the priv-ate and public sectors each year.