GSP restoration progress report Tuesday

The government will submit a progress report on ‘Bangladesh Action Plan 2013’ to the office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) by Tuesday though the review for reinstating Bangladesh’s Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) benefits still looks uncertain. The legal authorisation for the GSP programme expired on July 31, 2013 and the US Congress is considering a legislation that would extend the authorisation of GSP beyond this date, according to the USTR. As long as the GSP programme remains with no authorisation, there will be no public hearing and no request for public comments for the ongoing GSP country and product reviews and no final disposition of these reviews. “We’ll send the progress report by April 15 (Tuesday),” Commerce Secretary Mahbub Ahmed said on Saturday mentioning that he cannot tell about possible hearing or review on GSP restoration soon, according to UNB.