Alignment between soft and hard infrastructures a must: Dr Atiur

Former Bangladesh Bank Governor Dr Atiur Rahman has said more alignment is needed between soft and hard infrastructures among organizations of different countries to promote sub-regional trade among Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal (BBIN).

Dr Atiur, also Chairman of UnnayanShamannay, said this while chairing a session titled 'Facilitating Implementation of Trade, Transport and Transit between BBIN Countries' on November 14 organized by the CUTS International.

Consul General of Nepal to Kolkata Eaknarayan Aryal and Consul General of Japan to Kolkata Masayuki Tagawere were present at the event as special guests.

Among others, Satish K Reddy (Consul-tant- Regional Cooperation and Trade, ADB), Nazneen Ahmed (Senior Research Fellow, BIDS), Sujeev Shakya (Chairman, Nepal Economic Forum), and Dr A K Enamul Haque (Emeritus Fellow, Unna-yan Shamannay) were present as panel discussants.

They especially put emphasis on speeding up the implementation of the BBIN-MVA. They inferred that building trust at all levels from grassroots to policymakers will be required to achieve this.

Dr Atiur further elaborated that the sub-region now enjoys the highest level of political understanding between the leaders and the demand is pretty high for greater trade between the countries. The stakeholders must take advantage of this positive political environment and push forward concrete measures to do more trade.

He emphasized on sensitizing the stakeholders further about the benefits of enhanced trade through operationalizing BBIN-MVA and opined that available smart technologies can facilitate such a campaign to a great extent. Dr Atiur appreciated participants for suggesting many practical business solutions which can add value to the on-going discussion for multi-modal trade infrastructures.

The MVA can only be a trigger for cooperation and other modes should be encouraged to join the trade facilitation. He asked not to worry too much about the ethnicity and cultural issues as BBIN countries are part of an age-old regional culture which will allow all stakeholders to adjust to the new situation.