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Bangladesh and the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) will prioritise discussing free trade agreement (FTA) signing during a two-day meeting of a joint working group (JWG) due to be held later this month.
The meeting, due to be held on March 27-28, will also discuss increasing the export of Bangladeshi products in the region under duty free facilities and will be discussed with these allied countries, according to commerce ministry officials familiar with the matter.
Sergey Glazev, member of the EEC board, will lead a high-level delegation at the meeting. EEC is the executive body of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEAU) and is responsible for implementing decisions, upholding the EEAU treaties and managing the day-to-day business.
Top officials of the EEC have expressed keen interest to have a comprehensive dialogue during the JWG meeting in order to ensure some positive outcome, Ambassador Kamrul Ahsan recently informed the commerce ministry citing EEC Chairman Mikhail Myasnikovich and Sergey Glazev.
He also said the EEC officials told him that the block should have been more actively engaged with one of the fastest growing economies of the world like Bangladesh.
The upcoming JWG meeting with EEC in Dhaka has immense significance for Bangladesh. Currently, the country is in a disadvantageous situation as some of the EEC countries, which exports identical products, either signed an FTA with EEC or is negotiating for one. An early negotiation will put Bangladesh in a better position to ensure bilateral trading with the block. The proposed FTA with EEC is expected to ensure duty free market access for Bangladeshi products and boost the export in the region.
Bangladesh had last year formally proposed to the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) to ink an FTA, so that it could seek concurrence of its member-states-Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan. These five Eastern European countries have over $1.5 billion annual bilateral trade with Bangladesh, which commerce ministry officials believe will increase manifold if a free-trade pact is inked.
The officials concerned said Bangladesh and the EEC signed a memorandum of cooperation in Moscow in May 2019 aiming to take forward bilateral trade. Later, a working group was formed to enhance trade and economic cooperation between the parties in 19 sectors.
The first meeting of the JWG was held in November 2021 in Moscow.
