In view of tremendous potential of cross border trade between Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal (BBIN), Shankar Shinde, Chairman Elect, the Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations in India (FFFAI) has recommended seamless multimodal connectivity and strong logistics infrastructure in each of the above countries.
Accession to TIR Carnet would be immensely beneficial for the hassle-free cross border trade in this region. It would be pertinent to mention that FFFAI is one of the associates of TIR Carnet and have been working with the Government of India for International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC) project, under TIR Carnet.
Well-defined policies need to be framed up by the respective governments and well-trained officers including Customs and allied agencies engaged at the border check posts. Point to point vehicle movement would be the pragmatic solution instead of re-working of unloading and reloading transshipment to save cost and reduce dwell time.
The governments will have to provide more impetus on private logistics companies, NVOCC or multimodal logistics operators’ participation in the BBIN project and also important would be to create a BBIN website portal with complete information for trade participation and addressing issues.
