The New Nation - Internet Edition

REMAINING successful in business or winning more market shares, essentially involves reducing the costs of doing business. The economy of a country should aim to become more and more competitive to flourish internally and specially to promote its external trade. Bangladesh has many things to do for making its economy more and more competitive. Among them, a main requirement would be much improving, expanding and upgrading its transportation infrastructures and addressing the related ills. Recently reports appeared in the press, quoting a study sponsored by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), that the Bangladesh economy can gain significantly from rise in its total economic output and foreign trade by 20 per cent if the different modes of transportation only in the Dhaka-Chittagong corridor are made more efficient. The study also significantly revealed that the informal payments and other inefficiencies add up to 40 per cent to transport related costs for imports in the country.

Not only in this particular corridor, similar transportation related improvements and efficiencies need to be achieved throughout the country to give a spur to all kinds of economic activities leading to greater output. The same will call for adding to the number of transportation infrastructures, their maintenance and various supportive functions including also the elimination of the extortions and other man-made abuses. Transportation is counted as a major cost of business. The countries that have developed or are noted for moving up in the economic ladder, owe a lot to successful transport planning. Transport planning involves many things from building shortest roads, rail or waterways for the dispatch of cargoes to identifying and promoting the cheapest medium of transport and integrating them to the needs of various users. Different categories of users can use different mediums of transport suitable to them but each of these mediums need to discharge their utility efficiently for the optimum benefits of businesses. Thus, the challenge is adding to capacities of the different transportation mediums and making them function with utmost efficiency.

The ADB study recommended improvement in port operations and the establishment of more inland container depots (ICDs). Undoubtedly, the ICDs would reduce pressure on the Chittagong port and also ease the movement of traffic on the vital Dhaka-Chittagong corridor. There is also a proposal to build a four-lane highway that would further add to speed of movement of commercial cargoes in this corridor as well as facilitating the movement of greater volumes of such cargoes. Similarly, railway's transportation capacities in this corridor can be increased and improved by double-tracking the existing single-line tracks and improving railway management. The waterways-with ICDs of their own-need to be similarly developed. All of these measures will need to be taken in line with projections of present and potential uses of the transportation mediums.