Speakers at a seminar have urged the countries in the South Asian region to remove bottlenecks in promoting cross border energy trade.

“We should work on removing hindrances in technical and legal process to establish cross border energy trade in the region”, said Waseqa A Khan, chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on power, energy and mineral resources while addressing the seminar.

Bangladesh Enterprise Institute (BEI) organized the two-day seminar titled: “Socio-Economic Impact of Cross Border Energy Trade (CBET) at the South Asian Sub Regional Level: A Bangladesh Perspective” in association with USAID and South Asia Regional Initiative in Energy Integration (SARI/EI) at a hotel in the city on Wednesday.       

Waseqa Khan said there is no hindrances at the mass level. “But only hindrances are in the technical and bureaucratic levels”.

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With BEI president ambassador Humayun Kabir in the chair, the event was also addressed by Power Cell director general Mohammad Hossain, SARI/EI project director Pankaj Batra, BEI senior research director Faiz Sobhan, and senior energy advisor of the USAID Bangladesh Shayan Shafi.   

Mohammad Hossain said regional energy cooperation will definitely impact regional development.“Any initiative in this region will integrate the entire region.”  

Pankaj Batra said Bangladesh energy sector is gas-based while Indian energy sector coal-based and Nepal’s energy sector hydro-based.

The regional countries can take initiative to utilize their additional resources for other neighboring countries, he noted.   

A study report on the title of the seminar was unveiled in the function.

It was noted in the function that the US Agency for International Development (USAID) initiated the South Asia Regional Initiative for Energy (SARI/E) program in the year 2000, covering the eight countries in South Asia, viz. Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, The Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

In the first three phases, the program, aiming to promote energy security in South Asia, worked on three focus areas: Cross Border Energy Trade (CBET); Energy Market formation; and Regional Clean Energy development.

SARI/E played a key role in integrating and promoting the energy policy and technology linkages across the South Asian nations.