Shipping deal with Russia unlikely now

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Syful Islam Dhaka and Moscow are unlikely to sign a shipping deal on establishing direct shipping link during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's Russia visit this month for dearth of ships, officials said Thursday. "Bangladesh Shipping Corporation (BSC) has a very small fleet of ships which in no way can be adequate for establishing direct shipping links between Bangladesh and Russia. That's why the possibility of signing a shipping deal is remote," a senior official of the Ministry of Shipping (MoS) told the FE. Signing of a shipping deal between the two nations is on the agenda of Sheikh Hasina's forthcoming visit to Russia. Issues such as cooperation in the field of atomic energy and power, agriculture and supplies of food both ways, exploration and production of gas, and duty-free access of some apparel items to Russia will also get priority during her visit. The two nations last week signed a deal to help Bangladesh establish two nuclear power plants for generation of 2,000 megawatts of electricity. Dhaka and Moscow are in talks over signing of a shipping deal since 2004. The two countries have exchanged documents several times for the same. Shipping ministry officials said Russia had sent draft of a shipping deal in 2004 which Bangladesh approved in 2005. Since then Dhaka was waiting for response from Moscow about signing of the deal. However, no progress was seen until this year. An official of the shipping ministry said since the Prime Minister is going to visit Russia the issue of signing a shipping deal has been put on the agenda. "Recently we have sent the same draft of the deal to Russia which we sent earlier in 2005. No changes were made this time," the official said. The BSC has only 13 ocean-going vessels through which it runs services on international routes. The state entity is trying to buy two product carriers and one mother tanker to carry on the shipping service. However, its proposal to procure a mother tanker at a cost of Tk 3.5 billion under the initiative of public-private partnership (PPP) has recently been turned down by the cabinet committee. BSC sources said, of the 13 ships it has plan to remove two age-old lighterage tankers -- MT Banglar Jyoti and MT Banglar Sourav -- from its fleet as the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has prohibited plying of single-hull ships on the international routes after December 2010. Bangladesh and Russia have some US$250 million bilateral trade in a year. Bangladesh imported goods worth $153 million from Russia in fiscal year 2010-2011 against its export worth $96.95 million to that country in the same fiscal.