The Government of India is in constant touch with its counterpart in Myanmar for opening a trade route to link the land locked North-East Indian states to markets in ASEAN countries, through Myanmar.
The Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), R S Gujral, had disclosed that discussion with the Myanmar government was on regarding opening of the trade route through that country.
He hoped that it would come through for the benefit of exporters from the landlocked N-E that is located over 1100 kilometers away from the nearest sea port at Kolkata. He was talking at an interaction on Foreign Trade Policy with exporters from North East India.
However, he said the ideal situation would have been when traders from the region could get access through Chitagong sea port in Bangladesh and said that efforts were on at political and diplomatic levels for such a move.
Exporters based in the land locked North Eastern states on Monday demanded a special package of incentives under the new FTP for augmenting the volume of exports from the region during the interaction with Gujral in Guwahati.
The N-E exporters cited want of proper infrastructure facilities, transport bottleneck and complex bureaucratic procedures as major hurdles and sought a special package under the current FTP to boost export from the region.
As on date the total worth of volume of export of different items from the region including tea and coal stands in the range of Rs 125 crore (Rs 1.25 billion) per year and that is not much significance compared to total volume of annual export from the country.
The DGFT said while the Commerce Ministry had set a target to achieve 5 per cent of World's Trade in Goods and Services by the year 2020, it was the export community of the country that would have to take up the challenge, while the Government could only extend a helping hand.
The exporters from the North East India exhorted upon the DGFT to take initiative for setting up of more Inland Container Depots (ICDs) in the region. The only ICD located at Amingaon in Guwahati is about 1100 kilometers away from Kolkata port.
Gujral acknowledges, "North East does face tremendous bottleneck and hardship and the Government of India is conscious of the region."
He assured that the Government would try to resolve the issues raised by the exporters from the region by involving all the state governments in the region.
He called upon the exporters to take the initiative to identify areas in the North East where ICDs could be set up and assured to take up the issue with concerned ministries in the Union Government.
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