Dhaka: Bangladesh Finance and Planning Minister Mohammad Saifur Rahman on December 10 ruled out awarding of transit or giving transhipment facility to India owing to geological reasons.

"The soil of Bangladesh is very weak (soft) and our roads would be spoiled within months if allowed to ply... by heavy vehicles (of India)," a private television channel quoted Rahman as saying in a seminar, which focussed on ways of bridging Bangladesh's burgeoning trade gap with India.

His comments come amid reports that India has sealed borders with Bangladesh to ward off terrorists infiltrating into that country.

The seminar, held at Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies, under the aegis of Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, heard speakers dwell on ways of expanding trade relations with India, especially with its North Eastern states.

Rahman said India with a population of one billion people was a big market, which Bangladesh should explore.

However, he said, unless Bangladesh produced goods at competitive prices, it could not enter the Indian market.

In the last two decades, export from Bangladesh to India had doubled, but imports from the country had also grown eight times. The annual trade gap between the two countries was around $ one billion, he said.

The transit/transhipment issue is fairly controversial in Bangladesh and the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has been opposing the matter.

During the previous Awami League regime, a study was undertaken to determine the pros and cons of awarding the transit/transhipment to India. The matter was shelved at a later stage with positive findings initially.

PTI