Bangladesh eyes CEPA with UAE

Bangladesh and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are set to hold the first round of negotiation on the proposed Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) soon, aiming to boost bilateral trade, which will help the country navigate the economic challenges in post-LDC period.

The commerce ministry has already formed a high-powered Trade Negotiation Committee (TNC) in line with the Regional Trade Agreement-2022, sources said.

The UAE is home to 1.2 million Bangladeshis (10 per cent of the Emirate's population). Bangladeshis are the third largest expatriate community in the UAE after India and Pakistan, according to a document of the Consulate General of Bangladesh in Dubai.

The UAE has become the 18th largest trading partner of Bangladesh and is the largest remittance source for Bangladesh, the document mentions.

The Middle East nation is also a leading foreign investor in Bangladesh. In more recent time, the volume of trade between the two countries exceeds U$ 2.0 billion.

Bangladesh is on track to graduate to a developing country from the LDC club. As a result, Bangladesh's export items will face duty in many countries, including developed ones.

The government has already taken multiple moves including bilateral and regional agreements with different trade blocs and countries, aimed at preserving, expending and securing duty-free market access, said a high-ranking official.

Economists have advocated for signing different deals including FTAs (free trade agreements) with different countries to address the challenges when Bangladesh graduates to the next level. The official said the deals would help Bangladesh increase exports significantly.

Another commerce ministry senior official said, "We need to sign several regional agreement including CEPA/ FTAs before (Bangladesh's) graduation." After its graduation, he said, Bangladesh would lose various tariff-related facilities that it now enjoys as a least developed country (LDC).

"We're now negotiating with two dozen countries, including Singapore and Japan, for signing related deals to help boost the country's export earning," said an FTA wing official of the ministry.

He said that some issues, including revenue losses, have been involved with FTAs as all products of both the countries under FTAs enjoy duty-free facility.

Bangladesh signed a PTA with Bhutan on 06 December 2020, the first of its kind, since the country's independence back in 1971. However, the country is a member of several multilateral trade blocs.

The two multilateral FTAs that Bangladesh has so far signed are the South Asia Free Trade Area (SAFTA) agreement and the BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation).

On the other hand, three multilateral PTA deals that Bangladesh is a party to are the Asia-Pacific Trade Agreement (APTA), TPS-OIC (Trade Preferential Scheme-OIC) and D-8 (Developing-8) PTA.

rezamumu@gmail.com