Thrust on trade policy reform

Experts urged the government on Sunday to think about the country's trade policy reform seriously to overcome emerging internal and global economic challenges.

They made the call at a discussion on 'Tariff Rationalisation for Export Diversification in Bangladesh' organised by the SANEM Centre for International Trade on the concluding day of the Fourth SANEM Annual Conference 2019 in Dhaka, said a press statement.

Dr Selim Raihan, a professor of economics at Dhaka University, said that Bangladesh started with a very high tariff, but later there was a drastic cut in the tariffs.

"It still lagged behind many countries in the past one and a half decades, as other countries in consideration cut the tariffs as well to a greater extent," he said in his keynote speech.

"However, in a cross-country context, in terms of per capita GDP, tariff rate in Bangladesh is higher," he said, adding that Bangladesh is well above in terms of tariff than it should be in the given per capita GDP (Gross Domestic Product).

Dr Raihan, also executive director of the South Asian Network on Economic Modelling (SANEM), opined that Bangladesh has not taken its trade policy reform seriously since the mid '90s due to lack of pressure from the World Trade Organisation (WTO) for being the founder member.

"The country tends towards preference based policies," he added.

"Reluctance for tariff reform as an LDC is a profit-maximising policy, but export diversification has to be a development policy for the economy."

Khondaker Muhammad Aminur Rahman, Member, Customs Audit, Modernisation and International Trade of NBR, chaired the session, the press statement of SANEM said.

Ambassador Farooq Sobhan, special guest of the session, said there is ample evidence in the support of tariff liberalisation and this is something that the economists should take notice of.

Session panelist Munir Chowdhury, Director General of WTO Cell at Ministry of Commerce, highlighted the lack of reforms in Bangladesh, as the country benefitted from the nationalising advantages of WTO.

He shed some light on the review process of WTO and emphasised on the diversification of exports.

He focused his opinions on the challenges of the non-tariff barriers and said that measures to face these challenges call for collective approach.

The commerce ministry official also stressed the need for building trade-based capacity and dealing the issues with diplomacy.

Among others, Dr Momtaz Uddin Ahmed, Honorary Professor of Dhaka University, Dr Masrur Reaz, senior economist at World Bank Group in Bangladesh, and Syed Nasim Manzur, Managing Director of Apex Footwear Limited, also spoke at the event.