Bangladesh's largest port, Chattogram, handles more than 90% of the country's foreign trade, while Mongla is the country's second-largest seaport on the Bay of Bengal.

Bangladesh has given India permission to use the Chattogram and Mgla ports for cargo transit and transshipment, which is expected to significantly reduce the time and cost required to transport products to the country's northeastern states.

Bangladesh's National Board of Revenue (NBR) has issued a "permanent transit order" stating that cargo will be transhipped in accordance with standard operating procedures completed by the two countries under an agreement reached in 2018.

In recent years, India and Bangladesh have taken a number of steps to improve connectivity, including the reopening of several cross-border rail links concluded with Pakistan since the 1965 war, the linking of river waterway systems and the use of Bangladeshi ports for cargo transhipment to India's strategic north-eastern region.

The two countries signed the "Agreement on the Use of Chattogram and Fogla Ports for the Movement of Goods to and from India" in October 2018, and a year later they completed the standard operating procedures for putting the Agreement into effect. However, the transhipment of products had not yet started, as Bangladesh had to complete some customs procedures and put in place appropriate logistics, according to sources familiar with the situation.

The Covid-19 crisis, on the other hand, demonstrated the efficiency of cross-border connections, with the Indian side using cross-border train services to transport crucial supplies to Bangladesh.

In the previous year, the two sides conducted extensive test drives for cargo transhipment to the northeastern states via Chattogram and Mgla ports. In July 2020, a cargo of iron bars and legumes was transported from the port of Haldia near Kolkata to the port of Chattogram in southeastern Bangladesh and then shipped overland to Tripura.

The Bengali decree allows goods to be moved from Chattogram or the port of Mongla to Agartala in Tripura via Akhaura, Dawki in Meghalaya via Tamabil, Sutarkandi in Assam via Sheola and Srimantapur in West Bengal via Bibir Bazar.

Similarly, the northeastern states can use these similar channels to bring raw materials to Bangladesh's two ports.

Indian operators must obtain a five-year permit from Bangladesh customs and goods transhipped must not remain in Bangladesh's ports for more than a week. According to the directive, products prohibited by Bengali legislation cannot pass through the country.

Transporters pay transhipment costs of 30 Taka per tonne, a security surcharge of 100 Taka per tonne, an administrative charge of 100 Taka per tonne and tolls for the use of Bangladeshi roads.