Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed yesterday expressed the hope that Bangladesh will regain the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) from the US by June this year as Dhaka has fulfilled almost all conditions of the US.
‘Bangladesh has made significant progress in compliance.I hope that we’ll get the trade facility back by June,” Tofail told reporters at the Secretariat after a meeting with US Ambassador in Dhaka Dan W Mozena.
Mozena had the meeting with the minister and commerce secretary Mahbub Ahmed, where various trade related issues especially the GSP and the Trade and Investment Cooperation Forum Agreement (TICFA) came up for discussion. Tofail said, he had discussed with the US envoy about TICFA that has already came into effect since January this year. “We also talked about the GSP.both sides-Bangladesh and the US-want to cooperate with each other in the field of trade and commerce,” he said.
He explained why Bangladesh expects to get back the GSP from US saying that Bangladesh has fulfilled many of the conditions including occupational safety and workers rights.
Tofail went on saying there is no link between TICFA and GSP.
The commerce minister said a high-profile US private sector trade delegation will arrive in Dhaka April 6 to hold first meeting of the TICFA to discuss the bilateral trade and investment issues.
“Getting duty-free and quota-free market access for the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) will be the key agenda in the first TICFA meeting on Bangladesh side,” he said.
Earlier talking to journalists, Dan Mozena said an array of compliance issues especially fire safety and factory standard will be discussed during the April 6 scheduled meeting.
On a query, the US ambassador told BSS correspondent that there is no linkage between signing of the TICFA and reinstatement of GSP by Bangladesh saying that TICFA is a place or platform where each side can raise isssues and resolve those.
In the meeting, he said, Both Bangladesh and the US can be able to raise in honest mind whatever issue each side have, the envoy said adding that Bangladesh can also raise duty-free and quota-free market access issues.
Mozena lauded Bangladesh for taking some steps to get back the GSP. “But the country still needs to do a lot more to this end,” he said.
