Bangladesh gets aboard Trans Asian Railway

Bangladesh has signed the Trans- Asian Railway (TAR) to connect the country's rail system to the proposed 81,000 km network stretching from Europe to East and South-East Asia including India.

Bangladesh's permanent representative to the UN Ismat Jahan signed the inter-governmental pact at the United Nations headquarters on Friday to join the network, media reports said here today.

India signed the agreement on June 29 this year.

The TAR is to enter the country from three directions from West Bengal in India and exit through a single gateway in the east to make its way to Myanmar.

Despite the inking of the deal, Dhaka would still need to sign bilateral agreements to make operable the network, to be installed on an ancient trade route called "Iron Silk Road" which would link capitals, ports and industrial hubs across 28 Asian countries all the way to Europe, communication ministry officials said.

Bangladesh becomes the 20th signatory to the deal. Only eight of the 28 countries under the network were yet to sign the agreement, due to "procedural" and "technical" matters, rather than disagreement about the project, they said.

The development came six months after the interim cabinet in Bangladesh decided to join the cross-border network that also identifies the country as a transit route between China and India, the world's fastest growing economies.

Officials earlier said much of the long railway network already existed, although some significant gaps remain as evident in the tardy progress of the project since it was mooted by the UN way back in 1960.