Bangladesh failed to win back trade privileges from the US for its failure to fulfil the 16 conditions of Obama administration’s action plan, Prime Minister’s International Affairs Adviser Gowher Rizvi said yesterday.Politics had no bearing on the US government’s decision to leave out Bangladesh from the list of 122 nations for whom President Barack Obama reauthorised the generalised system of preferences scheme until 2017, he said.Rizvi’s comment is in stark contrast to Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed’s statement that the US did not give back GSP to Bangladesh for reasons other than the 16-point action plan. Bangladesh fulfilled all the 16 conditions in the action plan laid out by the United States, Ahmed said on August 11.“The bilateral relationship between Bangladesh and the US is the best now compared with any previous time. If we can fulfil all the conditions we will get back the GSP to the US,” Rizvi said.Rizvi’s comments came at a function on foreign policy at the National Defence College in Dhaka. Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies and Bangladesh Enterprise Institute jointly organised the seminar.The US suspended Bangladesh’s GSP on June 27, 2013, after the twin industrial disasters, including Tazreen Fashions fire and Rana Plaza building collapse.Among the major reforms the country carried out were the amendment of the labour law to allow full freedom of association by the workers and completion of inspection of 3,669 factories for structural, electrical and fire safety.Although delayed, the labour and employment ministry hired additional 200 factory inspectors, as per the conditions set by the US.It allowed registration of more than 350 trade unions and opened a publicly accessible database of the garment sector.The government also arranged training programmes for industrial police as per the conditionsApart from taking steps in line with the conditions, the government also lobbied hard with the Obama administration for reinstatement of the trade privilege.The country has however failed to formulate the rules for applying the amended labour law of 2013 and bring change in the law to allow full freedom of assocaition for factory workers of the export processing zones.The government also could not arrest the killer of labour leader Aminul Islam, who was tortured and brutally killed in Tangail in April 2012.To date, the government only managed to seize assets of the suspected killer of the trade union organiser with Bangladesh Centre for Worker Solidarity.Rizvi also said the foreign direct investment in the country has not been growing mainly due to lack of good governance.
