TICFA talks with United States focus many issues

Bangladesh desired duty-free-export facility restored on the US market and the United States trade representatives stressed expediting amendment to the labour law and ensuring worker right to form trade union.
Such was an inconclusive outcome of the seventh meeting of the United States-Bangladesh Trade and Investment Cooperation Forum Agreement (TICFA) Council, held Wednesday in Dhaka.
At the talks the US trade representatives assured Bangladesh of providing necessary technical and other sorts of support.
Senior Secretary of the ministry of commerce Tapan Kanti Ghosh and Acting Assistant USTR for South and Central Asia Brendan Lynch co-chaired the meeting held at a hotel. Both delegations consisted of officials from trade, labour, intellectual property, and other relevant agencies.
Briefing the media following the meeting, Tapan Kanti Ghosh said the host side strongly urged the US to give duty-free access of Bangladeshi products to the US markets.
The privilege on the single-largest market for Bangladesh's singly dominating export item-readymade garments--has long been put on hold over labour issues.
To underpin the request for the preferential trade facility, Mr Ghosh mentions that Bangladesh imports around 14 per cent of its total global cotton purchase from the USA.
"We have requested them to consider duty-free access on the apparel exported to the US using this cotton," he told the journalists.
They have taken notes of the arguments and said they would consider a way out for the apparel imported by the USA which uses such cotton, he said.
All developed and many developing countries, excluding the USA, allow duty-free access for Bangladeshi products. Referring to WTO's Hong Kong ministerial conference 2005, Bangladesh requested the US delegates to provide the duty-free access.
"We said we have made huge improvement on labour rights and other issues which they were concerned with," he said.
"They listened to our plea and said they would discuss the issues with their authorities concerned."
The US delegates wanted to know about-labour related issues, including their rights situation in Bangladesh.
"They expressed satisfaction over labour union-registration process which has improved significantly," Mr Ghosh said, adding that the USTR was happy with the investigation updates on slain labour-leader Shahidul Islam.
Five accused have already been arrested in this connection and they gave their statement ahead of submitting charge sheet, he mentioned. "They expressed satisfaction over the progress; they expect proper trial of the incident."
The meeting also discussed intellectual property rights (IPR) as Bangladesh is turning into a developing country.
"They said Bangladesh has to enhance the IPR-related laws to a global standard," said the senior secretary.
After they were informed of the progress with such law, they vowed to provide necessary technical support for expediting the enforcement of the laws.
Bangladesh asked for including it in the Global Financial Cooperation (GFC) fund that supports underdeveloped and developing countries. However, the US counterpart said the conditions to get the GFC fund are almost similar to that of GSP.
The US suggested faster amendment of the labour law with all stakeholders' consultation and in line with the ILO's technical recommendations.
Responding to a query, he said the US would also consider Bangladesh's request when they regulate GSP or Generalised System of Preference.
The US would find a way to provide duty-free benefits to Bangladesh for export of items not on the Sensitive List of the GSP.
Highlighting the achievement of TICFA, he said Bangladesh's export to the US has doubled to around $10 billion from eight to nine years ago.
Bangladesh sought technical cooperation from the USA in terms of getting support for several more years after graduation from LDC. Bangladesh sought technical cooperation for biotechnology in agriculture, product diversification, new investment, especially in the manufacturing sector, hi-tech like semiconductor and IT sector.
A US embassy statement issued to the media said the meeting discussed a range of issues impacting the bilateral trade relationship, most notably labour reforms, as well as policies impacting the investment climate and digital trade, intellectual-property protection and enforcement, and bilateral cooperation in the agricultural sector.
The United States noted that a tripartite labour law-review committee is reviewing the amendments to the Bangladesh Labour Act (BLA) and encouraged Bangladesh to extend freedom of association and collective bargaining to Bangladesh's Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and the Export Processing Zones (EPZs).
"The United States recognized that Bangladesh had undertaken some efforts to address hurdles workers face when registering unions, and stressed the importance of ensuring a simplified and impartial trade union registration process that allows for applications to be registered within the legal timeframe."
The US also reiterated its interest in engaging with Bangladesh on ongoing processes for amendments to IP-related laws and regulations, including the Copyright Act Amendments, Industrial Designs Act, Patent Bill, and Implementing Regulations and IPR Enforcement (Import and Export) Rules.
In addition, the United States discussed actions needed to address concerns with Bangladesh's ranking as one of the top five source economies for counterfeit clothing globally, as noted in USTR's 2023 Special 301 Report.

saif.febd@gmail.com