WTO Waiver on Services
Windows opened for LDCs
Bangladesh would immensely benefit from WTO’s decision to grant waiver on services from the least developed countries (LDCs) in its ninth ministerial conference slated for December in Bali, Indonesia.
Debapriya Bhattacharya, economist and distinguished fellow of think tank Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), said this yesterday at an international conference at Brac Centre Inn in Dhaka on the upcoming WTO ministerial conference.
He said the adaptation of waiver on services would allow the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) member countries to grant preferential market access to the services and service suppliers of the LDCs.
“Since Bangladesh is a member of LDCs, it will also be benefited from the decision. The country will enjoy trade benefit on export of services to the developed and developing countries for the decision,” he said.
The WTO will also adopt another important decision on Rules of Origin (RoO) at the Bali conference to be held between December 3 and 6.
Once for the first time the proposed decision on RoO is adopted, governments will have to set multilaterally agreed guidelines, which should help make LDC exports to qualify for preferential market access to developed and developing countries easier.
Two important issues — duty-free and quota-free (DFQF), and cotton — would remain unresolved in the Bali conference although the LDCs had been negotiating to resolve the issues for a long time, Bhattacharya said.
Some African countries have been negotiating to reduce subsidies in cotton by the US government, as they can hardly benefit from global cotton trade for this move by the American government.
The Bali conference would be the deciding factor as to whether the multilateral trade negotiation would be in place or not, as governments prefer bilateral trade negotiations in global trade, although the LDCs were more benefited from multilateral trade platforms, he said.
Trade analysts at home and abroad, academicians, diplomats and researchers also spoke at the three-day international conference at Brac Centre Inn, a preparatory gathering for Bali conference, organised by the CPD.
William Hanna, ambassador of the EU delegation to Bangladesh, urged the WTO to negotiate the trade facilitation as it is considered as the common agenda of all countries.
Urging the LDCs to work unitedly to achieve the goals, Bangladesh Commerce Minister GM Quader said Bangladesh currently enjoyed duty benefit from almost all the developed countries except for the US.
CPD Executive Director Mustafizur Rahman presented the keynote paper at the conference.
-With The Daily Star input
