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Bangladesh will provide 522 products with free access among BIMSTEC
Bangladesh has finalized a list of 522 products to provide duty-free access to three least developed countries (LDCs) of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) between June 2006 and June 2009.
Narinjara News
7 March 2006
Iftekhar Ahmed
Bangladesh has finalized a list of 522 products to provide duty-free access to three least developed countries (LDCs) of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) between June 2006 and June 2009.
It may also provide duty-free access for the same products to the other three developing countries of the seven-nation BIMSTEC from June 2011.
Bangladesh Finance and Planning Minister at a recent high-level meeting approved the list of 522 products for the facility, sources said. At the moment the products enjoy 10 percent tariff line.
The duty-free offer will be presented at the next working group meeting of BIMSTEC Free Trade Area talks scheduled for March 10-12 in New Delhi. The Delhi meeting will also discuss rules of origin criteria and some other outstanding issues.
To narrow all differences, the 12th meeting of the Trade Negotiation Committee of BIMSTEC will take place in Colombo in the first week of April 2006. The 11th round of Trade Negotiation Committee (TNC) meeting was held in Bangkok on February 6-11.
The four major components of the FTA accord on trade in goods are - rules of origin, negative list, dispute settlement mechanism and safeguard measures. Members only have reached consensus on dispute settlement mechanism, a government official said.
According to the framework agreement of the BIMSTEC FTA, trade liberalization will begin on July 1 this year.
Bangladesh, Burma, India, Sri Lanka and Thailand established BIMSTEC in 1997 to promote trade and investment, technology, energy cooperation, transport and communications, tourism and agriculture within the region.
Nepal and Bhutan joined the regional forum later and the member countries signed the BIMSTEC framework agreement in 2004. Three separate agreements -- agreement on trade in goods, agreement on trade in services and agreement on investment -- will be signed in phases, according to the framework agreement.
The negotiations on services and investment will begin after the introduction of the agreement on goods.#