Country will get services waiver within 8 months

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The country will get services waiver within eight months as the committee on Trade and Development of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is going to take steps to detail out regulations of the services waiver. Civil Aviation and Tourism Minister Lt Col (retd) Faruk Khan, who led a 17-member Bangladesh delegation to the just concluded eighth WTO ministerial meeting, said Bangladeshis working abroad would be benefited greatly once the policies are implemented. In an exclusive interview with BSS, the minister said services waiver is the most important achievement of the eighth ministerial meeting held in Geneva December 15-17. The WTO's services agreement specifies that each member shall provide non-discriminatory treatment to services and service suppliers of other WTO members. Faruk, the immediate past commerce minister, said many trade related issues of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) including Bangladesh got paramount importance in the sessions of the meeting. Citing example, he said, as per Bangladesh's plea, the Travel and Risk Planning (TRPS) commission would sit to extend the time of TRIPS (trade-related intellectual property rights) for Bangladesh as the agreement expires in June 2013. Listing achievements of the meeting, he said Russia would give Duty-Free-and-Quota-Free (DFQF) access to Bangladeshi goods and on the other hand Brazil is expected to allow duty waiver for 97 Bangladeshi items. Referring to the inclusion of few countries in the WTO meet, Faruk said WTO still remains a very important organisation since it took Russia 18 years to get the WTO membership. He said still there are many countries seeking WTO membership. He, however, pointed out that breaking the current deadlock in Doha Development Agenda (DDA) and full implementation of Hong Kong Ministerial Decision on Duty-free-Quota-free (DFQF) market access for LDCs would be the main challenges for the WTO in the near future. The Doha Round of talks, which began in 2001, have missed several deadlines due to differences on the demand by the developed countries on the level of market opening in the developing nations. There are also discords on protection for farmers in the developed world. "It is shameful for us that the WTO could not reach decisions on the unresolved issues for the last ten years. This is hampering WTO's credibility," Faruk conveyed this to the WTO meet. He said, "I told the meeting that it is ten years WTO could not reach decisions regarding the Hong Kong Ministerial and DDA. We have waited for long and how long we will show patience? Try to understand that the tedious wait might lead to destroy trust on you (developed nations)." During the meet, Faruk met trade ministers including of India, China, Japan, US, Brazil and EU and said the international trade would play a critical role in stimulating economic growth. The leader of Bangladesh delegation said he has suggested that a package be declared immediately keeping options of trade facilitation and opening for early harvest of Doha Round negotiations.