Road project to connect Myanmar sent to PC

The government would construct Bangladesh-Myanmar friendship road on the Cox's Bazar frontier en route to Kunming of China under the concept of regional connectivity to boost trade and economic cooperation, officials said Wednesday.
Communications ministry officials said the Bangladesh-Myanmar friendship road would be extended up to Kunming in the future as Bangladesh has agreed with the two Southeast Asian nations -- Myanmar and China -- to connect them via land routes.
The government would engage Bangladesh Army in building the two- kilometre road from Balukhali to Ghundum, the nearest border between Bangladesh and Myanmar, they said.
"We have already designed a project for constructing the 2km international- standard highway to connect Myanmar in land communications. The road is expected to boost the economic relations between the two neighbours," a senior communications ministry official said about the immediate benefit of the undertaking.
"We have sent a development project proposal, involving Tk 810.5 million, to the Planning Commission for getting approval," he said.
If the project is endorsed soon, the construction of the road is expected to be completed by December 2015.
Another communications ministry official said the governments of Bangladesh and Myanmar earlier had decided that Bangladesh would construct a 23-km road from Bangladesh's Ghundun point to Myanmar's Taungbro and Bauliabazar points.
On the other side, Myanmar would build a 110km road from Bauliabazar to Kyanktaw for facilitating connection of Bangladesh with the Chinese Kunming city.
They said the proposed two-km Bangladesh-Myanmar friendship road would also facilitate the proposed Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) corridor.
This is expected to be the biggest multi-nation transport corridor in this subcontinent.
Myanmar is the highly prospective nation among the Southeast Asian nations where the bilateral trade and economic cooperation could pick up manifold in the next few years.
Currently, total annual trade between the two countries amount to around a paltry figure of $100m. In 2012-13 financial year, Bangladesh exported goods worth nearly $14 million to Myanmar while imported products worth $84 million from the next-door neighbour.
At the last Joint Trade Commission (JEC) meeting held in January this year at Nay Pyi Taw, Bangladesh and Myanmar had set a target to increase annual bilateral trade to US$500 million, five times higher than the present figure, through further enhancing the ties between the two countries.
The two neighbours would find out possible ways and means to promote the bilateral trade, as agreed at the JTC meeting in Myanmar.