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Tarique Rahman heads to Tokyo next week with Matarbari port and a link to India's northeast on the table
Bangladesh's prime minister will hold talks with Sanae Takaichi on 27 October. Tokyo wants the Japanese-funded deep-sea port to become a gateway for India's seven northeastern states.
Key points
- Tarique Rahman will visit Japan from 26 to 29 October at Sanae Takaichi's invitation.
- Three or four of about eight draft agreements may be signed during the visit.
- Japanese officials see connectivity to northeast India as key to Matarbari port's value.
Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Tarique Rahman will travel to Tokyo next week for a four-day visit in which Japan hopes to turn a port it is building on the Bay of Bengal into a trade gateway for India’s northeast.
Rahman will be in Japan from 26 to 29 October at the invitation of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. The two leaders will hold talks at the Japanese prime minister’s office on 27 October, followed by a lunch. Bangladesh and Japan are negotiating about eight memorandums of understanding, and three or four could be signed, covering areas such as agriculture, fisheries, skills, civil aviation, trade and the environment. A joint statement is likely.
Japan’s foreign ministry said the visit “is expected to further strengthen the ‘Strategic Partnership’”. Foreign Secretary Asad Alam Siam said the economic partnership agreement the two countries signed in February “has created new opportunities for expanding trade and investment”. Dhaka will also raise Japanese help for its metro rail, airport and port projects and push for lower interest rates on Japanese loans.
The India angle
At the centre is Matarbari, the deep-sea port that Japan’s aid agency JICA is funding and that will be Bangladesh’s only such port when complete. Japanese officials have described a plan to link India’s seven northeastern states to the Bay of Bengal and Southeast Asia through it. “Enhancing connectivity from Bangladesh to northeast India” would strengthen the port’s value, they said.
Dhaka is more cautious. Siam said the port expansion was driven by Bangladesh’s own trade needs. “If we have idle capacity after handling our cargoes, we can think of other cooperation,” he said. The Maitri Bridge over the Feni river, which links Bangladesh with Tripura, is not operating amid strained India-Bangladesh ties.
The trip also tests Dhaka’s balance between Tokyo and Beijing. Japan is reported to have raised concerns through diplomatic channels about wording on the Second World War in a joint communique from Rahman’s visit to China in June.