First-Ever Preferential Trade Agreement
Bangladesh has signed its first-ever Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) with Bhutan which is also the first country that recognized Bangladesh as a sovereign and an independent country. By this ever-first preference derived bilateral trade deal, both countries will enjoy numerous mutual benefits and will avail win-win situations. Under this agreement, a wide range of products from Bangladesh and Bhutan will get duty-free entry into each other’s markets.
Bhutan will enjoy duty-free export of 16 products, in addition to the already existing 18 products to Bangladesh. Likewise, Bangladesh will enjoy duty free export of 10 more products to Bhutan along with its already 90 existing products. There is also a special provision included in the agreement which will allow inclusion of an additional list of products through mutual consensus. The PTA will encompass a wide scope of opportunities which ranges from trade, tourism, hydro-power, climate change impacts, health, bio-diversity, agro-processing, agriculture, ICT, education, water resource management and so forth.
We hope, Preferential Trade Agreement will further consolidate bilateral relations and mutual cooperation between Bhutan and Bangladesh. We further expect that it will also enable Bangladesh expediting an impressive economic recovery confronting multifaceted challenges and the impact of the unknown enemy Covid-19 pandemic.
Wares Ali Khan
Sadar Narsingdi
