The government is set to sign a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Macedonia as part of its efforts to explore the comparatively slow but potential markets across the globe, sources said.
According to the sources, the FTA between the two countries would cover trade in goods, services and investment.
An inter-ministerial meeting headed by secretary of the ministry of commerce (MoC) Md Mahbub Uddin Ahmed took the decision to sign the agreement last week.
"After making a feasibility study, we have almost finalised a draft of the FTA between Bangladesh and the East European country. It is part of our efforts of market expansion," the MoC secretary told the FE recently.
"There are many countries in the globe where there are immense prospects of our products but these are still lying untapped for lack of efforts. Now time has come to discover the opportunities by which it will be possible to give a big boost to the country's export earnings," he said.
"After the signing of the agreement with the European country, we hope our exports to the destination would see a significant growth," he added.
However, echoing the same hope, vice chairman (VC) of Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) Shubhashish Bose said Bangladesh would go one step forward to sign similar type of preferential agreements (PTAs) with some more countries of the territory shortly.
"It is time for market diversification of local products. Our exporters have been fighting to capture the share of some selected markets which is risky for long-term sustainability," he said.
The EPB VC also said the government is trying to expand export markets through establishing diplomatic relations and signing different types of PTAs with some African, Latin American, Russian and South-east European countries.
"We are trying to diversify and expand our export destinations through strengthening bilateral relationship with comparatively slow markets through negotiation, arranging single country expositions and other diplomatic efforts," he said.
Meanwhile, leaders of different trade associations appreciated the government's efforts of market diversification.
"We do hail the government for its effort to sign the FTA with the East European country. Signing of the agreement will pave the way to make similar agreements with some other countries which will positively help local exporters do well in such slower destinations," President of Exporters' Association of Bangladesh (EAB) Abdus Salam Murshedy told the FE.
According to data available with the EPB, yearly import volume of Macedonia is around US$ 6.5 billion and export is around $ 4.1 billion.
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