Tripura Seeks Help to Lift Bangladesh Rubber Export Ban

Agartala, Dec 19 (PTI) An industry body in Tripura has sought the Rubber Board's intervention to lift a ban by the Bangladesh government on supplies of rubber-based products to the neighbouring country through the northeastern state, officials said.

India-Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce and Industry's Tripura chapter general secretary Sujit Ray said local traders are suffering from the restriction on exports of rubber-based products to the neighbouring country.

These products are part of the list of items which are banned from exporting to Bangladesh from Tripura-based land ports even as the northeastern state is the second highest rubber producer in India, Ray told reporters.

An average 90,712 metric tonnes of rubber is produced in Tripura annually.

Ray and several others from the industry held a meeting with Rubber Board's chairman Sawar Dhanania on Monday.

“Bangladesh is a big market for us. If we are not allowed to sell our best products to the neighbouring country, local traders will suffer. India-Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Tripura Merchants' Association (TMA) have urged the chairman of Rubber Board India Sawar Dhanania to get this impasse over at the earliest," he said.

Officials of the Land Port Authority of India, representatives from the Rubber Board and Tripura Merchants' Association, dealers and producers were present at the meeting.

Claiming that the meeting was fruitful, Ray mentioned, "Dhanania gave a patient hearing to our points and said that he would take up the matter with the ministry concerned for getting an approval for export of rubber through our border with Bangladesh."

The Bangladesh government had imposed the ban on the import of rubber-made goods through the state's border with the neighbouring country even as there is no such restriction on other border trade routes, Land Ports Authority of India Manager Debasish Nandi told PTI on Tuesday.

Not only rubber-based products but tea produced from the northeastern state is also not allowed to be exported to the neighbouring country despite many attempts by Santosh Saha, the former chairman of Tripura Tea Development Corporation to remove such a restriction.