Trade remedy measures 'won't help SMEs to reap benefit from WTO'

FE Team | Published: October 31, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

FE Report
Bangladesh needs to handle the issues related to trade facilitation and removal of non-tariff barriers with due care to ensure more access of the country's products to the global market as well as benefit from the World Trade Organisation (WTO) guidelines.
"I will say neither the trade remedy measures nor rebates in tariff will help the country's small and medium entrepreneurs (SMEs) to reap benefit from the WTO in future," Debapriya Bhattacharya, Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the UN and WTO, said at a discussion meeting with the Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI) in the city Sunday.
Instead, he stressed the need for adopting the required measures for trade facilitation and removal of non-tariff barriers to bolster the country's export.
Besides, he also stressed the need for making the export-import procedures simple, saying the government needs to identify the barriers separately.
Regarding product diversification, Debapriya said, "Our prime focus should be on leather and pharmaceutical products."
President of the DCCI, Hossein Khaled, was in the chair at the discussion meeting on 'WTO and SMEs of Bangladesh' while Nazmul Ahsan, Secretary General of Bangladesh Pharmaceutical Industries (BAPIs), and ASM Quasem, former DCCI president, among oth ers, participated in the discussion.
Debapriya said the next seven to eight months are very crucial for the country, as negotiations for fixing the modalities of the WTO specifically for agro-products will resume and are expected to be complete before the Christmas.
He reiterated his request to the business community for assigning a representative to Geneva in order to reap optimum benefit from the WTO negotiations.
Citing examples of India and Pakistan, he said the missions of both the countries are adequately staffed to deal with the UN and WTO affairs separately. But the Bangladesh mission in Geneva is relatively under-staffed and the work-scope is limited, he added.
Taking part in the discussion, DCCI president said liberalisation had a serious impact on the SMEs in the country and led to the closure of a large number of enterprises resulting in substantial loss of employment.
The SMEs constitute 93.6 per cent of all industrial units of Bangladesh.
In order to benefit from the Geneva process, the private sector needs to be involved and regularly updated about the WTO negotiations, information and its processes, he said, adding: "We understand that there remains a gap between private sector and ministries concerned while collecting and preparing inputs."
Referring to the poor share of the LDCs in world trade of goods and services, he said aid for trade should be implemented in such way so that it can be a useful vehicle to assist the LDCs to develop their trade capacities.
Nazmul Hasan, Secretary General of BAPI urged the government for bringing changes to the patent law to help the pharmaceutical sector sustain its growth.