Badrul Ahsan :
The second round of TICFA meeting between Bangladesh and the USA is scheduled to be held in Washington today (Monday) with a high hope of getting back GSP benefit in the US market.
In the meeting, delegates from Bangladesh have planned to highlight the progress of the country in terms of RMG sector reforms, competent sources at the foreign ministry said.
Besides, both the sides will also explore areas to boost bilateral trade and investment between them, the sources informed.
Senior Secretary of Commerce Hedayetullah Al Mamun and Assistant US Trade Representative for South Asia Mike Delaney will co-chair the TICFA Forum meeting, said a high official at the Commerce Ministry here.
On November 25, 2013, Bangladesh and the US signed the Trade and Investment Cooperation Forum Agreement (TICFA) to establish an annual forum to identify and address obstacles to increase bilateral trade and investment.
The first TICFA meeting was held in Dhaka in April last year.
Apart from the GSP issues, the Bangladesh side is likely to seek the US support in the upcoming 10th World Trade Organisation Summit and will ask the US authority to include RMG (readymade garment) in its duty-free package which the developed countries committed it in the fifth WTO Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong in 2005, but the US kept apparel items from Bangladesh out of the package.
This year’s TICFA seeks to further bolster trade ties between the United States and Bangladesh, which exceeds $6 billion annually, said the US side.
“Bangladesh will focus on GSP issue in the TICFA meeting with the USA with a high hope that there will be a solution to the long-pending issue,” Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed said.
“We expect to get back GSP (Generalised System of Preferences) benefit after the TICFA meeting. Bangladesh will keep GSP issue on its agenda,” he said.
Earlier, US Ambassador in Dhaka Marcia Stephens Bloom Bernicat at a meeting with the commerce minister said, Bangladesh export growth to the US market is ‘robust’ and the GSP will be in the agenda of the TICFA meeting, and the future export potential of the country will also be discussed at the meeting as some products like pharmaceuticals has a good potential in future.
“We’ll also discuss making two-way trades more robust. How we can increase the trade in both ways. We’re now partner countries, we’ve shared values and US is friend of Bangladesh,” Bernicat said in the meeting.
However, Bangladesh submitted its progress report twice in line with 16-point US Action Plan for Bangladesh to the United States Trade Representative, the Chief trade negotiator for the Obama administration although the country is yet to receive any positive response from the US side.
Bangladesh has recruited over 200 additional factory inspectors, allowed trade unionism with full freedom of association, amended the Labour Law and formulated supporting rules for the amended law.
Under the action plan, Bangladesh has also published a publicly accessible database and a hotline on the garment sector and completed the preliminary inspections of the 3,500 garment factories.
