Commerce minister to attend WTO’s trade policy review meet

Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi left for Geneva on Monday to take part at the 5th Trade Policy Review (TPR) meeting of Bangladesh to be held at the World Trade Organization (WTO) secretariat in Geneva.

The meeting, which is considered to be an important one for Bangladesh, is expected to discuss various issues including trade and investment situation: overall progress of import and export and creating environment for raising investment flow, ensuring investment-friendly monetary policy to keep the monetary situation at a tolerable level, revenue policy: planned operations in tax management to boost revenue collection including legal reforms.

The meeting will be held at the WTO secretariat on Wednesday and Friday.

The meeting is also expected to discuss on industrial policy: formulating time befitting industrial policy to increase the contributions of the industrial sector to the GDP, framing policy for fixing the labour standard at international level as per the labour law and EPZ law, protecting the intellectual property and ensuring good governance, and implementing the multilateral, regional, and bilateral trade agreements.

Bangladesh as being the founding member of the WTO, participated in TPR meetings back in 1992, 2000, 2006 and 2012.

The Commerce Minister is leading a 16-member Bangladesh delegation comprising representatives from the Commerce Ministry, Bangladesh Bank, Agriculture Ministry, the National Board of Revenue (NBR), Industries Ministry, FBCCI and BGMEA.

After wrapping up his tour, Tipu Munshi is expected to return home on April 9.