Bangladesh needs to focus on narrowing its trade gap as the country brings in more services than it ships overseas, speakers said Wednesday.
The country's import of trade in services is $6.0 billion a year, compared with $3.0 billion exports of the same.
Bangladeshi policy makers and the government still lack knowledge, experience and the capacity in services trade negotiations in the global forums.
The country should lay emphasis on regional and bilateral trade agreements regarding service.
And service is the only major sector for Bangladesh in a post-LDC era through which it can close the trade gap.
The comments came at the final validation workshop on 'Export Potential of Trade in Services of Bangladesh: Identifying Institutional Capacity and Human Resource Development for Trade Promotion (EIF Tier 1) Project ' of the WTO cell of the ministry of commerce.
Bangladesh Foreign Trade Institute (BFTI) in collaboration with the commerce ministry organised the workshop.
Commerce secretary Shubhashish Bose was present as the chief guest, while director general of the WTO cell of commerce ministry Munir Chowdhury was the special guest.
Three researchers of BFTI Recardo Saurav, Benazir Rahman and Nahrin Rahman Swarna presented papers on the ongoing study.
They made presentation on four areas of study such as services in tourism and travel, computer, transport and human health.
The paper presenters said that the contribution of service sector to gross domestic product (GDP) in the current price is 56 per cent, 30 per cent for the industry and 14 per cent for the agriculture.
The service sector employed 39.2 per cent of the total employed population in fiscal year 2016-17, up from 36.5 per cent in fiscal year 2015-16.
The export income reached $ 3,164.69 million in 2016-2017 from $ 2,919.38 in 2015-16, registering an 8.40 per cent growth.
The target is to earn $ 3,500 million. Export performance in July-February period of the current fiscal is $ 2,635.34.
At the programme, speakers laid emphasis on exporting nurses from Bangladesh.
They identified various challenges such as low-quality education system, language and training problem, cultural barrier and lack of skilled nurses in the process.
Some suggested promoting medical tourism in Bangladesh along with other related products.
Vice chairman of the export promotion bureau Bijay Bhattacharya disagreed with the views, saying that the elites and a significant number of people do not receive healthcare services in Bangladesh. "How can we expect foreigners to come here for treatment?" he asked.
Munir Chowdhury said Bangladesh would lose some trade opportunities after its graduation to a middle income country status.
But the country has to make up the loss from the services sector, he said.
He said there was a staggering gap in services export and import.
"We have to think how to minimise this trade gap," he said.
Regarding trade in services, he identified the complex nature of service sector, knowledge gap, experience and capacity, inadequate legal and physical infrastructure, comprehensive service policy, lack of trade-related capacity, and the absence of available data as the major challenges.
He emphasised bilateral, regional trade agreement and free trade agreement to reap the benefit.
Shubhashish Bose said MICE (Meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibition) tourism could be promoted.
Thailand has agreed to set up a branch of Bangkok General Hospital in Bangladesh, which may help promote medical tourism.
"We have to find out the possibilities of bilateral and regional trade agreements. For that, we have to develop institutional capacity and skills," he said.
The study, which is being carried out by BFTI, has interviewed 40 stakeholders in each sector
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