Bangladesh should set FTA priorities, address intellectual property concerns ahead of LDC graduation: Speakers
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Bangladesh should set its priority areas of negotiation and countries or regions with which signing a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) can bring maximum benefits after graduation, when the country will lose preferential market access.
Besides, the country should also raise awareness and take the required policy to engage the private sector regarding intellectual property rights, which would become one of the major concerns in the post-graduation period.
The recommendations came at a roundtable on ‘Intellectual Property and Trade Transition Challenges: Best Approaches for Local Industries of Bangladesh’ organised by Bangladesh Chamber of Industries (BCI) at its office in the city.
Talking at the roundtable, Mostafa Abid Khan component manager 1 (SSGP) at ERD and senior fellow at Policy Research Institute of Bangladesh, said major challenge to sign an FTA is that Bangladesh export basket is very low as 60 per cent of the total export earnings come from 10 products which shows less benefit for Bangladesh in signing an FTA.
Instead of denying the challenges of FTA, which takes three to four years of negotiation due to its tricky issues, he suggested identifying the areas or issues that need to be addressed and taking measures accordingly.
Explaining the need to sign FTA, Dr MA Razzaque, chairman of RAPID, said Bangladesh will lose market access to some countries and its priority should be to engage in negotiations with those countries or regions so that the country can sustain the market benefits there.
Talking over GSP plus benefits in the EU after LDC graduation, he said Bangladeshi-made readymade garments will not get duty benefit under the GSP plus scheme due to its safeguard measures.
“So Bangladesh’s top most priority should be to get engaged with EU right now to get the safeguard measures relaxed,” he said adding the new EU GSP regimes, that also include the safeguard measures, will be effective from 2027 and if the country does not start negotiations from now, it would be difficult to get the waiver when the new regime comes into effect.