The commerce secretaries of Bangladesh and Nepal will meet in Dhaka on May 10 after three years to find out the trade modalities under the Motor Vehicle Agreement (MVA), signed by four south Asian nations.
Official sources said the two-day meeting is likely to sign agreements and memorandums of understanding (MoUs) on easy market access, preferential trade, duty-free access to products of both the countries, technical barriers to trade (TBT), and sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures.
Draft of the agreement and MoU were finalized during joint secretary-level meeting last year. The last secretary-level meeting was held in July 2012, they added.
Sources said the meeting is likely to focus on unresolved issues between Bangladesh and Nepal as well as port and visa-related issues to remove the trade barriers and ensure smooth commercial activities using BBIN MVA.
"This year, Bangladesh Bhutan India and Nepal (BBIN) MVA will also get focus in the commerce secretary-level meeting, as this will be the first such meeting since the deal was signed last year," said an official.
He said the Ministry of Commerce (MoC) is yet to finalise the list of products to seek preferential treatment from Nepal and to provide easier market access to the country.
The sources said Bangladesh is likely to provide duty-free access to 108 Nepali products, mostly agricultural items, and Nepal is likely to provide preferential treatment to 55 Bangladeshi goods.
MoC held a preparatory meeting in this connection on Tuesday with the commerce secretary in the chair, and will also sit with the stakeholders concerned to finalise the product list and agenda of the meeting.
The meeting was attended by representatives from the agencies concerned, including National Board of Revenue, Bangladesh Railway and Ministry of Road Transport and Bridges.
Bangladesh and Nepal were supposed to sign an agreement on providing easier market access to each other's products and removing trade barriers during the commerce secretary-level in October last.
But it was postponed following Nepal's request due to its political crisis during that time.
A Nepali newspaper in February reported that the country requested Bangladesh to hold the commerce secretary-level meeting in May. Quoting Commerce Secretary Naindra Upadhyaya it said Nepal has also forwarded two draft MoUs on TBT and SPS measures.
Under a MoU, the two sides will give recognition to quality certificates of each others' products. The TBT-related MoU deals with quality certificates of manufactured products, while the MoU on SPS deals with quality of agriculture products.
The MoC sources said as per Nepal's demands, some unresolved issues, including trade facilitation and on-arrival visa through border points Banglabandha and Burimari as well as from India under BBIN will be on the table. They also said reduction of customs duty and access to port facility etc will also get focus.
Nepal has offered to reduce customs duty by 5 percentage points, if the duty structure is higher than 15 percent, and by 3 percentage points, if the duty level is below 15 percent.
Nepal has given similar preferential treatment to Chinese products as per an agreement signed with China's Tibet.
   smunima@yahoo.com
BD-Nepal secy-level meet to discuss MVA trade modalities
Munima Sultana | Published: May 04, 2016 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00
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