BANGLADESH INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AND STRATEGIC STUDIES

FACILITATING OVERLAND TRADE IN BCIM: ISSUES AND WAYS FORWARD

Author: Prabir De

DOI Link: DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.56888/BIISSj2006v27n1a3

ABSTRACT

Spurred by trade liberalization, tariff barriers are now low in most countries across the world. Many argued that tariffs have been dropped to a level where in many cases any additional reduction would now no longer have a significant impact on trade. However, poor institutions and inadequate infrastructure are negatively affecting trade, differentially across countries. Therefore, the attention is now being focused on facilitation of merchandise trade, both inbound and outbound. Despite rapid trade and economic development in BCIM, inefficient trade facilitation measures are continued penalising the subregional trade. This paperargues that when the tariffs in this sub-region tend to become low and in view of the subregion’s geographical surface continuity, economies in BCIM will gain equitably a lot if overland trade is encouraged. Finally, this paper prescribes some policy options to facilitate overland trade in BCIM.