Govt takes policy in free of charge and preferential trade deals

Financing minister AHM Mustafa Kamal comes with said that the federal government has adopted insurance policy for executing bilateral agreements on no cost and preferential trade with different countries.

In unveiling the 2021-22 fiscal price range in parliament on Thursday the minister said bilateral Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) and Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) are either being signed or finalised to meet up the challenges in global trade following country’s changeover from LDC status.

“Under the arrangement, 34 Bhutanese products are certain to get duty-free usage of the Bangladeshi marketplace and 100 Bangladeshi items to the Bhutanese industry,” he added.

AHM Mustafa Kamal said PTA negotiations with Nepal are in the final stage.

He further said significant progress in addition has been manufactured in formal talks aimed at signing a bilateral PTA with Indonesia. Focus on a joint research aimed at conducting a free trade contract with Sri Lanka reaches the final stage.

Furthermore, he said, feasibility analyses have been completed to evaluate trade potentials for signing of FTA or PTA with distinct countries, such as for example Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Japan, Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC).

Bangladesh’s feasibility of signing trade agreements with China, Myanmar, Nigeria, Mali, Macedonia, Mauritius, Jordan, the USA, Iraq and Lebanon has been explored.

He said an initiative has been taken up to conduct a good joint feasibility analysis on the proposed “In depth Economic Partnership Contract” between Bangladesh and India.

To lessen trade deficit measures are appearing taken to take out tariff and non-tariff barriers by simply executing bilateral trade agreements. Such agreements have been signed with 44 countries, he added.

He said the federal government has continued to provide export incentives to 36 goods to increase competitiveness in exports enjoy it was done in the last fiscal year.

The government has identified 17 products to boost exports in the aftermath of the pandemic, which is likely to play a solid role in sustaining export growth after Bangladesh’s transition from minimal developed countries in 2026, said the finance minister.