The Bangladesh mission in the UK has come up with a set of suggestions, including 'aggressive marketing strategy', aimed at absorbing the potential economic shocks following the free trade agreement between the UK and Vietnam.
Other suggestions include increasing exports of electronic products and footwear to the UK market and further improving the ease of doing business index in Bangladesh.
The mission also proposed conducting a study on urgent basis on assessing the short-, medium- and long-term impacts of the proposed FTA with the UK taking economic and political issues into consideration.
The UK and Vietnam signed the free trade agreement (FTA) in December last year.
The FTA has posed a significant challenge for Bangladesh, as Vietnam is one of the major competitors in the global apparel market, a commerce ministry official said.
Currently, Bangladesh mainly exports simple products to the UK market, but Vietnam has been exporting complex items. The main exportable items of Vietnam to the UK market are electronics products and footwear.
Although Bangladesh's capacity of exporting electronic products and footwear continues to rise, the volume of exports of these items to Britain is now negligible.
The mission expressed the hope that the exports of these two products would go up if different countries, including the UK, invest more in the country's electronic and footwear industries.
Besides, Bangladesh can consider becoming a strategic country partner of the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council (CWEIC), a commercial wing of the commonwealth. The Bangladesh High Commission in the UK has already sent a proposal to the commerce ministry to this end.
The mission has also suggested reviewing the expansion of Bangladeshi investment to the UK to improve the economic relations with Britain.
It said that the two-way investment can add new dimensions to the trade relations between the two countries.
The mission also mentioned that the Vietnam government appointed a firm to increase export earnings from the Finland market.
Apart from using traditional channels, aggressive marketing strategy can be adopted like Vietnam for increasing export earnings from the UK market, it said.
The Bangladesh mission sent the suggestions to the commerce ministry recently after the ministry sought some proposals in this regard following the UK-Vietnam agreement.
In February last, the first ever UK-Bangladesh Trade and Investment Dialogue took place at the Ministry of Commerce in Dhaka.
Both Bangladesh and the UK agreed to develop a future trade partnership that will promote mutual prosperity and ensure Bangladesh's economic development as it graduates from the Least Developed Country status.
The two countries also agreed to improve the trading relationship through a mutual commitment to private sector-led growth, encouraging investment, and addressing trade barriers facing their companies while exporting goods and services.
The Bangladesh's exports to the UK were around US$3.4 billion and the volume of imported goods from the UK was nearly US$410 million last year.
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