Drug prices may go up once Bangladesh leaves LDC club: UN
The common people's access to medicine at low cost will be impacted once Bangladesh comes out of the least-developed country bracket, said the United Nations.
“Hence, the health policy of the country may be required to be adjusted,” according to a statement from the Permanent Mission of Bangladesh to the UN in New York after the visit of a Bangladesh delegation regarding graduation issues.
A delegation led by Kazi Shofiqul Azam, secretary-in-charge of the Economic Relations Division, visited New York to attend the meeting of the Committee on Development Policy (CDP) held at the UN headquarters on March 21.
Bangladesh is expected to graduate from the LDC status in 2024 and the country would have to bring in considerable changes in policies, particularly with regards to trade, drug and manufacturing policies.
The reason being, it would no longer be able to enjoy the TRIPS agreement waiver.
The TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) agreement requires all the members of the World Trade Organisation to comply with minimum standards of intellectual property rights, but the least-developed countries are exempt from it.
The CDP experts recommended Bangladesh should consider initiating negotiations with its trading partners.
“Smooth transition must be ensured by Bangladesh in the wake of its graduation from the LDC category.”
The Bangladesh delegation included Shamsul Alam, member of General Economics Division, and Mohammad Amir Hossain, director general of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics.
The experts also opined that the graduation is likely to require the country to go for some policy adjustments, according to the statement.
The CDP experts stressed that a graduated country must not risk slipping back to this category.
They spoke highly of Bangladesh's success in socio-economic sectors, particularly in realising gender equality in the country. One expert enquired if the LDC status had helped Bangladesh in its economic progress.
Another asked if Bangladesh is concerned about other factors that may exist as the source of discrepancy in data.
For instance, Bangladesh mentioned that its inflation rates in fiscal years 2013-14, 2014-15, and 2015-16 stood at 7.35, 6.41 and 5.92 respectively.
One expert expressed his curiosity on how inflation was so accurately measured as the rates were reflected in decimal.
It was also pointed out that Bangladesh does not publish quarterly GDP account, which could have made the data on GDP more accurate.
Alam said Bangladesh will introduce quarterly GDP forecasts from 2018.
Mentioning that remittance plays a big role in the foreign reserve of Bangladesh, an expert also said that CDP was having a discussion on whether remittance and the role of diaspora should be included as an indicator under the Economic Vulnerability Index (EVI).
EVI is one of the criteria used by the UN CDP in the identification of LDCs.
The index is a composition of: population size; remoteness; merchandise export concentration; share of agriculture, forestry and fisheries in GDP; homelessness owing to natural disasters; instability of agricultural production; instability of exports, and the share of population living in low elevated coastal zone.
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