Staff Reporter :US Ambassador in Dhaka Marcia Bernicat has said Bangladesh needs to do some more works in the readymade garment sector’s [RMG] capacity building though there has been significant progress over the last two and a half years.”Especially, there has been much progress in terms of workers’ safety, but much more are to be done. I’ve come here to see how the Bangladeshi workers and their children are passing their days,” she said while addressing a function as the chief guest arranged by East West Industrial Park at Signboard area in Gazipur on Friday. The US envoy said: My country [US] and the international community are witnessing that workers’ rights are respected in Bangladesh. Besides, the workers are also allowed to assemble together. “The international buyers know how a worker is working and the efforts will be successful once owners and workers will work jointly. We know that change is never an easy job,” Bernicat said.Meanwhile, the statement of American ambassador came at a time when Bangladesh and US are in tussle over the issue of GSP [generalised system of preferences]. On July 29, the Obama administration left out Bangladesh from the list of 122 nations at the time of reauthorising the GSP — the US’s biggest scheme for the world’s poor nations.The US administration said that reason for the exclusion was Bangladesh’s failure to fulfil all the 16 conditions the Obama administration had set when it revoked the privilege two years ago on grounds of poor workplace safety and labour rights.But refuting the allegation, Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed had said that Bangladesh had fulfilled almost all conditions given by the US. “We have nothing more to do. I am not interested at all in taking any more initiative to get back the GSP,” the Minister had said.Tofail said: There is no reason except a political one for not giving the privilege to Bangladesh. Even Pakistan, where the human rights are violated and the working condition is bad, was given the GSP.The GSP programme promotes economic development by eliminating duties on up to 5,000 kinds of products when imported from the 122 countries on the list.According to statistics provided by Commerce Ministry, Bangladesh exported $34.7 million under GSP in 2012. The top GSP imports from Bangladesh included tobacco, sports equipment, porcelain china and plastic products.In fiscal 2014-15, Bangladesh exported goods worth $5.58 billion to the US, with 95 percent of them being garment products, which were subjected to 15.61 percent duty. A year earlier, the amount was $5.58 billion, the statistics said.
