Home ›› 04 Dec 2022 ›› Front
Bangladesh will seek preferential market access to the United States instead of the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) facilities in this year’s Trade and Investment Cooperation Forum Agreement (TICFA) between the countries.
The annual meeting is scheduled to take place on December 6 in Washington, according to commerce ministry officials.
Commerce Ministry Senior Secretary Tapan Kanti Ghosh will lead an eight-member Bangladeshi delegation at the meeting with officials of the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), said sources. The USTR is the US equivalent of Bangladesh’s commerce ministry.
Officials said Bangladesh will prioritise discussing export-import of seed, data protection and removal of social media regulation obligations at the meeting.
The commerce ministry has recently held a meeting to review Bangladesh and USTR’s agendas for the TICFA meeting.
Hafizur Rahman, director general of the WTO Cell, Ministry of Commerce, said, “We will seek preferential access to the US market, rather than asking for GSP directly.”
He also said Bangladesh will seek easy registration for Bangladeshi medicines in the US.
Besides, he added that the US will give the certification authority to Bangladesh over seed export-import and shipping garments while the laboratory tests could be conducted in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh will also seek approval to join the Investment Development Fund Corporation as a member. In order to be an IDFC member, a country must be a GSP beneficiary. Meaning, the US will have to provide the South Asian nation with the GSP facility before approving the IDFC membership.
Bangladesh’s GSP facility to the US expired in 2020 and has not been extended since.
The US halted facility even earlier in 2013 citing a lack of safety at workplace and violation of labour rights in Bangladesh. The decision came after the country’s readymade garment sector suffered multiple tragedies including the Rana Plaza collapse, Tazreen Fashion fire, etc.
