Government to commercialise agro sector: Minister

Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi on Tuesday said the government has taken an initiative to commercialise the agricultural sector to make it profitable for poor farmers.

The minister said the government is putting the highest importance on the agricultural sector to create a strong position for Bangladeshi agro- products in international trade.

The minister was launching the Bangladesh Trade Facilitation, a new agriculture and economic development project funded by the US Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service, at Hotel InterContinental Dhaka.

US Ambassador to Bangladesh Earl R Miller also attended the programme.

The Bangladesh Trade Facilitation Project would help legal and structural reformation of the trade process of agro-products, developing testing facilities to ensure the quality of the products, and developing infrastructure for temperature-controlled preservation of products, he added.

Tipu Munshi said there would be a strong position of Bangladeshi agro-products in the global market after the implementation of the project with assistance from the US government.

The $27 million project will support the Bangladesh government to implement the World Trade Organization Trade Facilitation Agreement in the areas of simplifying and automating import and export processes, strengthening risk-based clearance processes, improving notification provisions, developing the capacity and testing procedures of laboratories, and enhancing the cold chain system for facilitating trade of perishable goods.

The project is a five-year initiative and Land O’Lakes Venture37, a US-based not-for-profit economic and agricultural development organisation, will implement it bringing together the agencies supervising and providing trade services.

Ambassador Miller at the programme said, “This project will facilitate and incentivise investment, construction, and the operation of new cold storage facilities to improve and expand on Bangladesh’s refrigerated logistics network.”

Commerce secretary Tapan Kanti Ghosh, Business Initiative Leading Development (BUILD) chairperson Abul Kasem Khan also spoke at the programme.