Govt to sign TICFA with US soon
Commerce minister Ghulam Muhammed Quader on Saturday said the United States would retain the Generalised System of Preferences facilities enjoyed by certain Bangladeshi goods in accessing its market. The GSP facilities will even be enhanced in the future, he said while speaking as the chief guest of a seminar on ‘bilateral free trade agreements – opportunities and challenges for Bangladesh: framework issues’ hosted by the Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry at its auditorium in the city.
Dhaka is also going to sign soon a trade and investment cooperation framework agreement (TICFA) with Washington as the government has initiated a process for boosting trade between Bangladesh and the USA, said GM Quader.
The minister said the bilateral relationships, particularly the GSP facilities offered by the USA, became shaky in the wake of Rana Plaza collapse at Savar and other mishaps in the garment industry. Nevertheless, the US will continue to offer, and even enhance, the GSP facilities to a range of goods imported from Bangladesh, he added.
‘After we sign a TICFA with the USA, trade and economic cooperation between the two countries will get a fresh momentum. However, either side will reserve the right to cancel the deal any time by issuing a 90-day notice,’ he told the DCCI seminar.
The minister said although Bangladesh would not be benefited much by the FTA as it could cause a revenue loss yet the government was going ahead with its plan to strike FTAs with different countries to further liberalise foreign trade for the welfare of the people.
The government has already started negotiations for signing FTAs with several countries including Thailand, Myanmar and Jordan soon, besides strengthening regional co-operations with the neighbouring countries, Quader said.
He said the central bank was going to offer capital account convertibility facility to local businessmen to facilitate overseas investment of their money.
Centre for Policy Dialogue additional research director Khondaker Golam Moazzem presented the keynote paper at the seminar while Bangladesh Tariff Commission chairman M Shahab Ullah, D-Net executive director Ananya Raihan, and Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies research fellow Abul Bashar spoke on the topic of the session presided over by DCCI president M Sabur Khan.
Shahab Ullah said, ‘Bangladesh should sign FTAs as soon as possible. But before concluding any FTA, the government will have to explore carefully all the alternative ways of increasing international trade revenues as an FTA can cause the revenues to fall. So, the country needs to do a lot of homework before going for striking every FTA.’
Bangladesh currently enjoys preferential market access to a number of developed countries but is deprived of such facilities in other major markets, said a number of speakers at the seminar. Signing FTAs bears immense potential of generating greater economic benefits for the country, they added.
-With New Age input
