The government is interested in striking a number of bilateral free-trade area (FTA) deals before the country leaves the club of poor countries, officials said.
Bangladesh is expected to graduate from its present position of a least developed country (LDC) to the status of a developing country by 2024.
Currently, the country is a member of two multilateral FTA and three preferential trade agreement (PTA) blocs.
But it has no bilateral free trade agreement or PTA deals with any country.
The two FTAs are South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) pact and BIMSTEC FTA (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation Free Trade Agreement).
The three PTAs are Asia-Pacific Trade Agreement (APTA), Trade Preferential Scheme among member states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (TPS-OIC) and Developing-8 Preferential Trading Agreement (D-8 PTA).
However, the BIMSTEC FTA is still to take effect.
A senior commerce ministry official said the government is eager to ink bilateral free trade deals considering that Bangladesh would not qualify for existing trade benefits after its LDC graduation.
The local exportables enjoy duty-free market access to 28 states of the European Union and 10 other countries like Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Norway and Chile, he told the FE.
Against this duty-free trade facility, Bangladesh does not need to provide duty waiver in case of importing goods from all 38 countries.
But these states might scrap free access of Bangladeshi products after 2027 when the grace period after the LDC graduation is over.
According to the official, Bangladesh will have to enter into fresh agreements with the countries offering benefits reciprocally.
Many countries have signed bilateral FTA deals and benefited from large investments by their counterparts, he went on to say.
Shafiqul Islam, additional commerce secretary, said the government is exploring possibilities of inking bilateral FTAs with potential countries.
The Bangladesh Tariff Commission has been asked to make a study with which countries the FTA deals could be signed, he added.
"We're in talks with Sri Lanka and Malaysia over the signing of FTAs," he told the FE.
Plans are also well under way to sign PTAs with a good number of countries, added Mr Islam.
Last June, Bangladesh and China began doing a joint feasibility study on the likelihood of an FTA.
Last year, finance ministry gave a green light to commerce ministry to the move to strike bilateral and multilateral FTAs with several states.
"Bangladesh's large trade gap with many countries can be minimised through signing FTAs since the deals will help raise goods export," according to finance ministry.
It named China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Malaysia, Thailand, South Korea, Pakistan, Japan, Argentina, the United Arab Emirates, Australia, Sri Lanka and Saudi Arabia as potential countries for FTAs.
Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya, distinguished fellow of the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), sees no problem in signing FTAs with major countries.
But during study, some issues have to be kept in mind so that Bangladesh could benefit from the deals, he told the FE earlier.
Dr Bhattacharya said Bangladesh needs to check whether it would get preferential tariff reduction and its exportables could be included in the FTA concession list.
"The amount of revenue loss from an FTA needs to be calculated and removing non-tariff barriers has to be addressed," he added.
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