The United States Trade Representative has recently sent 19 queries to the Bangladesh government as a part of the hearing on continuation of Generalised System of Preferences facilities.
The government is readying the queries that included the latest development of labour leader Aminul Islam murder case, progress of the amendment to labour law and the detail of the fire safety hotline.
After a hearing in Washington on GSP continuation on March 28, the USTR sent the questionnaire in the first week of April and set a deadline to submit the answers by April 24.
The commerce ministry is going to hold an inter-ministerial meeting on April 18 (Thursday) to make proper replies of the questions, ministry officials said.
‘Though the formal meeting in this regard will be held on April 18, informally we are sitting every day to make the submission in due time’, commerce secretary Mahbub Ahmed said while talking to New Age on Monday.
He said they were hopeful that the USTR would be satisfied following the submission as the country had made progresses over its labour standards.
An official of the commerce ministry said the USTR had asked to know the development of the cases which was filed against labour leaders Babul Akter and Kalpana Akter, detail of registration cancellation of the Bangladesh Centre for Worker Solidarity and the Social Activities for Environment, initiatives for the labour leaders who lost their jobs for organising trade unions in their respective units and the rights of trade union in the garments sector.
On June 3, 2010, the government cancelled the registration of the non-governmental labour rights organisations Bangladesh Centre for Worker Solidarity.
After the cancellation the government detained Babul Akter and Kalpana Akter and filed cases against them.
At the same time the government also cancelled the registration of Khulna-based environmental NGO Social Activities for Environment which was working on shrimp sector.
The ministry official said that as per the notice of the USTR it was scheduled to submit the online post hearing brief by April 18 but the date had been extended to April 24 as the USTR made delay in sending their questionnaire.
He said the ministry had started its work on April 7 and sent letter to the ministries concerned to give input on the queries.
Most of the ministries have already sent their replies to the commerce ministry and it would finalise the answers of the questions of the USTR at its meeting on April 18.
On March 14 the ministry had made an online pre-hearing brief submission to the USTR to place it at its March 28 hearing in an attempt to retain the US GSP facilities.
On March 28 Bangladesh answered questions including those on trade union and work environment in factories at the fourth round of USTR hearing on GSP continuation in Washington.
-with New Age input
