First Rupee trade shipment from Petrapole border to Bangladesh

Kolkata: The first Rupee trade shipment from West Bengal’s Petrapole border to Bangladesh took place on Tuesday, an official said. Petrapole, located in North 24 Parganas, is the major land port for bilateral trade with the neighbouring country.

The Indian government has been promoting Rupee trade with several countries to save forex, aiming at reducing dependence on the US Dollar and strengthening regional currency and trade. This will have a similar impact on the neighbouring country.

”It was a shipment of vehicle chassis from Tata Motors, and the value of the shipment is Rs 1.23 crore,” said Kamlesh Saini, the manager of the Land Ports Authority of India (ICP Petrapole), speaking to PTI. ”This shipment is in Indian Rupees, and it will give further fillip to exports,” he said.

Banks in Bangladesh and India have been given permission to open nostro accounts. It is an account in a bank of another country for the purpose of foreign currency transactions.

Earlier this month, at the Rupee trade launch event in Dhaka, Bangladesh Bank Governor Abdur Rouf Talukder described the start of trade settlement in rupees as the ”first step in a great journey.”

The governor of Bangladesh’s central bank had said the transaction costs during trade with India would reduce with the introduction of the Taka-Rupee dual currency card, which was ”almost ready to be launched from September.”

According to the latest data, Bangladesh’s imports from India are worth USD 13.69 billion, and exports to India amount to USD 2 billion.