Getting on board the Trans-Asian Railway (TAR)

Daily Star, Bangladesh

Published On: 2007-11-13

Editorial

Editorial

Editorial

Getting on board the TAR

We must not fail to exploit its huge potential

 

It is good that Bangladesh has decided to hop on board the Trans-Asian Railway network (TAR). And we compliment the caretaker government for deciding to sign the intergovernmental agreement on TAR. According to the UN, this is one of the three pillars of the Asian Land Transport Infrastructure Development (ALTID) project, endorsed by the UNESCAP Commission in 1992, along with the 141,000km Trans-Asian Highway and facilitation of regional land transport projects.

What that means is that we can now, theoretically at least, think of traveling right up to the borders of Europe in the west to China in the east, by surface transport. It remains a theoretical proposition primarily for two reasons. There are several missing links in rail connection in several countries whose completion, one hopes, would be expedited by the compulsions of the potential of expanded trade volume. Secondly, all the countries in the network must enter into bilateral agreements for using the network, both for passengers and goods.

It hardly needs to be mentioned that rail transportation of goods remains the safest and the easier and quicker mode of transport compared to road transport that causes more environment pollution, or moving goods by sea that is hamstrung by inadequate port facilities, and the sea-lanes are often infested by pirates. Given that Asian trade is growing at around 13 percent annually compared to 9 percent for the rest of the world, there would be more than the trickle-down effect of regional trade that countries like Bangladesh would benefit from, apart from boosting its own export.

For Bangladesh the potential of TAR is tremendous. Just take our trade with India for example, which although highly weighted against us, remains more than a hefty 2 billion USD. To have all the import goods freighted by train will pay us considerable economic dividends in saved cost that is incurred currently due to transshipment of the imported goods at the border checkpoints. The added advantage of the Bangabandhu Bridge opens up vast potential of trade and of export particularly, for Bangladesh.

One must not overlook either the fact that, people to people contact, and the cultural interaction that TAR is bound to generate, will boost mutual cooperation not to speak of the enrichment of human resources such interaction will cause.

However, merely signing the agreement does not mean we are there yet. Many loose ends need to be tied up and many technical details addressed. We must develop new economic potential to get the fuller benefit of the Trans-Asian Railway network.