Dhaka fleshes out five points for WTO

Faruk Khan to lead the Bangladesh team at the WTO meet.Star Business Report

Bangladesh will push advanced countries to include its "commercially meaningful" products in the 97 percent duty-free category in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial meeting to be held in Geneva at the end of this month.

At a press conference, Commerce Minister Faruk Khan yesterday said the advanced countries had offered 97 percent duty-free facilities to the least developed countries (LDCs) at the Hong Kong ministerial meeting, but the inclusion of the major products in this category was not ensured.

As a result, Bangladesh, being one of the LDCs, failed to export its major exportable products duty-free to the developed world, Khan said.

According to an estimate, 30 major Bangladeshi exportable items were not included in the 97 percent duty-free category, although those products take up 70 percent of export volume.

Bangladesh paid $576 million as duties to the US in fiscal 2008-09 against exports, which is the same as the amount France paid in duties to the US despite being an advanced nation and exporting manifold to the country, according to trade body data.

Duty-free and quota-free access is among the five points Bangladesh is set to press at the WTO meeting.

Bangladesh will also highlight how to recover from global recession and tackle its impacts on the domestic economy.

Bangladesh will demand benefits from the developed world, as it is a "disproportionately affected country". In the South Asian region, two countries -- Sri Lanka and Pakistan -- are enjoying benefits in exports as disproportionately affected countries.

As an agenda for negotiation, Bangladesh will also seek smooth export of human resources under WTO's MODE-4, or free movement of natural persons to the developed world.

"It is our long cherished demand that the advanced countries will import skilled and semi-skilled workers from the LDCs under the WTO negotiation," Khan said.

Bangladesh will ask the developed world to remove any restriction on the exports of food items to LDCs to avert any food crisis in poor countries.

Khan said representatives would hold several meetings on the sidelines with leaders of other LDCs, Saarc, BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) leaders and Japan to harness economic, bilateral and multilateral trade benefits.