India on Saturday implemented port restrictions on imports of some products, including readymade garments and processed foodstuffs, from Bangladesh. India put port restrictions on imports from Bangladesh of some products, including readymade garments and processed foods.
The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), under the Commerce Ministry, issued a notification on Saturday that imposed “port restrictions on the import of certain items like readymade garments, processed food items etc., from Bangladesh to India,” the ministry stated.
The order restricts the ports from which these particular goods are allowed to enter India, hoping to control trade flows more strictly. But port restrictions will not extend to Bangladeshi goods passing through India but bound for Nepal and Bhutan, it noted.
The order stated that Bangladesh readymade garments imports would be banned at all land ports. However, only through Nhava Sheva and Kolkata seaports is it permitted. For fruits; fruit flavoured and carbonated beverages; food processed items (baked items, snacks, chips and confectionery); cotton waste and cotton yarn waste; plastic and PVC finished products, dyes, plasticizers and granules; and wood furniture, the notice stated that the imports from the adjoining nation shall not be permitted via any LCSs (Land Customs Stations) and ICPs (Integrated Check Posts) of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram; and LCS Changrabandha and Fulbari, in West Bengal.
It further stated that these port restrictions do not cover the import of Fish, LPG, Edible Oil, and crushed stone from Bangladesh. To implement these changes, a new paragraph is added in the nation’s import policy governing the imports of these items from Bangladesh to India, “with immediate effect,” it announced. On April 9, India revoked the transhipment facility that it had extended to Bangladesh for shipping different things to the Middle East, Europe and several other nations excluding Nepal and Bhutan.
It came in the wake of the controversy surrounded by the statement by the interim government head of Bangladesh Muhammad Yunus in China recently that India’s seven north-eastern states, which have a virtually 1,600 km-long border with Bangladesh, are landlocked and do not have any means of going to the ocean except via his country.
