Bangladesh along with other members of the LDC group is likely to seek continuation of the existing trade facilities from all the parties concerned for a six-year period after their graduation from the least developed country (LDC) status, sources said.
To this effect, the LDC group is preparing a proposal for submitting to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), they added.
When contacted, Md. Hafizur Rahman, Director General at the WTO Cell - Ministry of Commerce (MoC), said, "The LDCs group is going to seek flexibility of the existing facilities for six more years after the graduation."
He added that the LDC group would submit the proposal to the WTO.
The extension of the existing trade facilities would help the LDCs to get preferential treatment for easy transition during their graduation and post-graduation time.
Bangladesh is on its way to graduate from the LDC status in 2026 and likely to get exposed to open competition in its external trade, now being benefited from the generalised system of preferences (GSP). The next graduating countries also include Nepal and Laos.
The DFQF facilities and preferential rules of origin for the LDCs as per the WTO Hong Kong ministerial and Nairobi ministerial declarations must be provided by the developed and developing countries.
"The LDCs have been hit hard by the trade downturn, triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. The persistent food and energy crisis, resulting from the global geopolitical situation, also reversed much of the development progress - achieved so far by the LDCs, further strengthening the rationale for effective post-graduation support," according to an official document.
The United Nations adopted the principle of "smooth transition", whereby specific support measures for the LDCs would be phased out progressively over a time after the graduation to avoid disrupting their development progress, added the document.
Currently, Bangladesh's products have duty-free market access to 38 countries. Of the countries, 28 member-states of the European Union (EU) are giving duty-free market facilities to Bangladeshi products. Besides, Japan, Chili, Norway, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, India and China are also providing such facilities.
The government is trying to secure duty-free market access to a number of countries after the LDC graduation, said a MoC official.
Currently, Bangladesh is sincerely working to sign FTA/PTA with different developed countries, which would not provide duty-free facility after its LDC graduation in 2026, he added.
Currently, there are 46 LDCs, of which 16 countries are on the path to graduation. Ten of these 16 are the WTO members: Angola, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Djibouti, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Senegal, Solomon Islands, and Zambia.
Four countries are in the process of WTO accession: Comoros, Bhutan, Sao Tome and Principe, and Timor-Leste. The other two are Kiribati and Tuvalu.
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