In an effort to ensure the continuation of GSP facilities of Bangladeshi products in the US market, a government delegation, led by Foreign Secretary Shahidul Haque, will travel to Washington on May 13 for holding talks with stakeholders including officials of the United States Trade Representative. The decision was taken on Tuesday at a meeting at the Foreign Ministry between the Foreign Secretary and garment sector leaders including BGMEA.
“We have decided to go to Washington on May 13 where we will have talks with all the stakeholders including USTR,” Shahidul told The Independent on Tuesday night.
The hearing on the GSP facilities for Bangladeshi products was held on March 28. Later, the review committee put forward 19 more questions for further clarification. It is expected that the outcome of the hearing will be made by end of May or first half of June.
The Foreign Secretary said that the delegation would include representatives from ministries of commerce and labour and they would hold official talks from May 14 to 15. “It will be informal meetings as there is no scope of formal meeting now,” he said.
“We talked with the BGMEA delegation about how the foreign ministry can contribute jointly to resolving the recent situation,” he added.
Shahidul also said, “We just wanted to know what steps have so far been taken.”
He said that he had asked the garment sector leaders to send a private delegation to the Washington and Bangladesh ambassador to US would help them.
-With The Independent input
