BNP to write US: Fakhrul

Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir. Star file photo

BNP will soon send a letter to the US government requesting restoration of trade facilities for Bangladesh, a top leader of the party said Saturday.

"We have already urged the US government (to restore the GSP) and will formally send a letter to it in this regard," BNP acting Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said at a press conference at the party's central office at Nayapaltan in the capital.

Fakhrul's reaction came couple of days after the US suspended Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) privileges for Bangladesh following a six-year review that exposed “serious shortcomings” in safety and labour standards.

About Information Minister Hasanul Haq Inu's remark that BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia provoked the US to suspend the trade privileges, Fakhrul said: "It is Awami League, which has previous records of writing such letters. BNP does not have this kind of practice."

Talking to journalists at Bogra circuit house the day before, Inu said the BNP chairperson had written a letter to the US government seeking withdrawal of GSP facility for Bangladesh as a part of a conspiracy to destroy the country’s export-oriented readymade garment sector.