Bangladesh will continue to push for its proposal to relax the local value addition criteria of the D-8 Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) as the trade officials of developing eight (D-8) nations are sitting in Dhaka today (Monday), officials said.
They said the country has long been advocating for reducing the local value addition criteria for the least developed countries (LDCs) to 30 per cent from existing 40 per cent.
Being the current chair of the economic grouping of eight countries - Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkiye - Bangladesh is hosting the seventh session of the Supervisory Committee on the D-8 PTA and third meeting of the D-8 Trade Ministers' Council until Tuesday.
In the sixth meeting of the Supervisory Committee that comprises trade officials looking after the technical issues, the Bangladesh delegation said the country will fully implement and operationalise the PTA with current text of Rules of Origin (RoO) considering that three member states supported the proposal and others agreed to discuss it after operationalisation to amend the RoO Articles 4 and 5, recognising its status as a Least Developed Country (LDC).
According to officials concerned, the delegation also reiterated Bangladesh's position for it to be recognised as having LDC's status and that the negotiations in this regard shall be continued after implementation of the agreement.
The delegation of Bangladesh highlighted that Bangladesh's RoO proposal is for effective utilisation of the preference to be offered by other member states.
A senior official at the ministry of commerce told the FE Sunday that Bangladesh will continue enjoying various trade benefits until 2029 as decided in the just concluded 13th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
He said Bangladesh's local industry is yet to become strong enough for 40 per cent value addition which is a main criterion to get trade benefits under the D-8 PTA.
Thus, the official said, Bangladesh this time will also push for the same and will try to ensure enjoying the LDC benefits within the D-8 member states until 2029.
Sources at the ministry of commerce said the Monday's meeting will also discuss issues like timeline for implementation of the PTA and setting up of a cut-off date to make the agreement operational.
Officials said the meeting may also discuss expansion of the offer lists of the products as they comprise some products that are in some cases least or non-traded, which hardly have any significance for their own economy or the other members.
On Tuesday, the D-8 Trade Minister's Council will adopt the reports of the fifth, sixth, and seventh Supervisory Committee meeting, have discussion on the starting date for the operationalisation of the PTA and adoption of the protocol on dispute settlement mechanism, and adoption of D-8 trade facilitation strategy paper, sources said.
According to the D-8 secretariat, the bloc constitutes one seventh of the global population totalling 1.1 billion, accounting for almost 4.0 trillion dollars of Gross Domestic Products, $1.5 trillion of exports and $110 billion dollars of intra-trade.
syful-islam@outlook.com