The Bangladesh Tariff Commission recently identified 110 products to seek preferential market access for their export to Nepal under the planned preferential trade agreement (PTA) between the two nations. The request list, which includes products from the readymade garment, plastic, footwear and steel sectors, has been prepared considering their export potential. The commission will soon finalise the list after discussing with exporters and stakeholders, according to newspaper report in Bangladesh.
BTC on December 26 last year held a meeting with stakeholders, including exporters, about the list and sought opinions from trade bodies. It decided to prepare the list following a request from the commerce ministry as part of the negotiation on signing the PTA with Nepal. Both countries had expressed interest to sign a PTA during the fourth meeting of the Nepal-Bangladesh commerce joint secretary-level technical committee held in Kathmandu on 22-23 October last year. The meeting decided that Bangladesh would exchange its request list containing the name of products against which it seeks duty benefits with the country. In 2016, Bangladesh prepared a request list containing 56 products and an offer list of 108 Nepalese products for preferential market access to the Bangladesh market. But the move was unsuccessful. Nepal now maintains a sensitive list of 998 products for least developed countries (LDCs) and 1,036 products for non-LDCs that are not entitled to preferential trade benefits under the South Asia Free Trade Agreement. The commission also assessed the products’ prospects for future export based on the analysis prepared by the Bangladesh embassy in Nepal.
Source – Fibre2Fashion.
