Dhaka and Ankara last week concluded their exploratory mission with positive note to strike an FTA between the two countries to boost trade and investment, a senior trade official at the commerce ministry said on Sunday. The meeting held in the Turkish capital from August 26 to 28 finalised a draft terms of reference that outlines the basic fundamentals to guide and initiate the further talks to ink the proposed trade pact.
The ministry of commerce will now go ahead with the ToR and submit the draft to the Prime Minister’s Office this week for approval, a source said.
‘The meeting was successful as we succeeded to finalise the ToR on the bilateral FTA,’ Monoj Kumar Roy, additional secretary of the commerce ministry, who led a five-member delegation to Ankara, told New Age on Sunday.
‘Once the ToR is approved by the highest authorities of the two negotiating countries, the next course of action to kick start the proposed deal will begin immediately,’ he added.
Monoj declined to disclose the content of the ToR.
However, a member of the delegation requesting not to be named said the ToR contains basic guidelines such as timeline for gradual implementation of duty elimination scheme under the proposed free trade agreement, duration for a full-fledged FTA, negative or positive list approach for duty reduction and safeguard mechanism for Bangladesh being a least developed country.
Explaining, the official said Dhaka included safeguard mechanism in the ToR to get compensation from Turkey in case the FTA impacts Bangladesh economy and weigh on its revenue earning badly.
Sources said the meeting discussed a draft template (pre-draft agreement) on the FTA prepared by the commerce ministry that mentions 10 prospective areas under the goods and service sectors for cooperation under the proposed accord.
‘Turkey agreed in principle to extend its cooperation in the overall trade and economy of Bangladesh under the proposed FTA regime between the two countries,’ a senior official at the commerce ministry said.
A bilateral FTA leads to a gradual reduction of duties on imported goods and encourage services sector eliminating trade restrictions to each other markets to increase bilateral trade and investment, a trade expert said.
The 10 areas included in the templates for cooperation are : jute, construction, electronic commerce, collaboration in SME development, tourism, energy, fisheries, infrastructure development in the sea ports and waste disposal.
The trade officials said Turkey has a large demand for a number of products in which Bangladesh has considerable export capacity.
Bilateral trade between Bangladesh and Turkey was worth about US$ 835 million in 2012-13 fiscal year.
Turkey in September 2010 imposed the safeguard duty at a rate of 17 per cent on apparel imports from the least developed countries including Bangladesh. The imposition of the duty badly affected the export of readymade garment from Bangladesh to Turkey.
The trade officials said Turkey has huge demand for jute and jute goods, RMG and frozen food originating from Bangladesh.
-With New Age input
