New markets, duty-free access bring hopes for BD exports

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Nizam Ahmed The country's export growth is likely to gather pace in the second half of the current fiscal year (FY) 2012 as recent trade policies of China and Myanmar are set to boost Bangladesh shipments, traders and officials said on Tuesday. A Russian pledge to provide Bangladeshi products duty-free and quota-free access to one of the top-20 global economies from next year is also seen as a timely boost to the country's sluggish export growth. According to the Export Promotion Bureau, export growth has eased to 17.3 per cent to US$9.71 billion in the first five months of the current FY from a 35.8 per cent the same period last year when the country's overseas sales stood at $8.27 billion. At present, China allows duty-free access to 4,762 products --- or 70 per cent of its total imported items --- from developing countries such as Bangladesh. However a recent policy to expand Chinese import catalogue to 8,194 products, to be effective from January 1, 2012, will open scope for more Bangladeshi items to be shipped to China, traders said. In addition, China has also announced trade concessions for some Asian and Latin American countries. "To boost regional and bilateral trade, China will continue to lower tariffs on imports from ASEAN countries, Chile, Pakistan, New Zealand, Peru, Costa Rica, South Korea, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, based on relevant free trade agreements," the Ministry of Finance (MoF) said in a statement on its website. The statement was issued from Beijing on the conclusion of the three-day eighth ministerial conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Geneva on Dec. 17. For non-LDCs the statement said: "The average tariffs on more than 730 categories of imported goods will stand at 4.4 percent in 2012, less than half the rate for the most favoured nation under WTO rules." Bangladesh traders and officials have welcomed the Chinese decision, saying it will scale up Bangladesh's exports to the world's second largest economy, which currently enjoys a large trade gap with Bangladesh. The current annual volume of bilateral trade between Bangladesh and China is around $7.0 billion, out of which Bangladesh imports goods worth some $6.5 billion from China while exports items worth only $500 million, a data of the Federation of Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) said. Bangladesh imports military hardware, industrial equipment and raw materials and machinery from China while exports raw jute, jute goods, leather and dehydrated sea fish etc to China. Russia, which became the latest member of the WTO, meanwhile pledged to extend duty-free and quota-free access to Bangladesh. Montenegro, Vanuatu and Samoa have also joined the multilateral trade organization in its latest ministerial conference. Russian minister of economic development, Elvira Nabiullina, made the pledge when Bangladesh's civil aviation tourism minister Muhammad Faruk Khan, the erstwhile commerce minister, met her on the sidelines of the WTO conference on Dec. 16. Moscow backed Dhaka during its 1971 liberation war and helped clean the Chittagong Port Channel which was jammed by ship wrecks damaged during the deadly struggle.