WTO hails BD export growth

With acquiring significant share in the global export market for manufacturing and service products, Bangladesh's export growth showed progress on solid footing, according to a recent report of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), reports BSS.
In line with the Bali ministerial decision, the WTO Secretariat prepared the annual report on the LDCs' (least developed countries) market access, and presented the report to its sub-committee recently for the first annual review of preferential rules of origin.
The rules of origin are the criteria needed to determine the national source of a product. To avail benefit from duty-free and quota-free market access, exporters from an LDC need to comply with the criteria set by the importing country to determine where the product was made.
While analysing the preferential benefit that the LDCs got last year, the report noted that total value of exports of goods and commercial services from the LDCs to the global market grew by 5.2 per cent in 2013.
Among the LDCs, Bangladesh took the top position as manufacturer exporter with total US$29,114 million for export of manufacturing products last year.
At the same time, export of commercial services from Bangladesh was also significant with $1876 million, the report showed, and added that the country's ICT industry would become a major export earning sector besides the readymade garment (RMG) industry.
"In more recent years, growth was fuelled by the LDCs in Asia, due to the significant performances of Cambodia as a leading tourism destination, of Bangladesh as an emerging ICT exporter and, of Afghanistan as construction supplier," the report stated.
The report, however, pointed out that most of the LDCs lacked export diversification, which remained as a major hindrance to increase their export earning that would be sufficient enough to reduce the gap between the internal and the external trade.