Dhaka will form a committee to fix the next course of action in the wake Britain’s exit from the European Union. Commerce minister Tofail Ahmed on Sunday stressed the need for forming the committee saying that the country might engage in renegotiations with Britain.A new situation has been created after Britain voted to break away from the EU in a historic referendum last week, he said. The commerce minister was talking to reporters after a meeting with officials of seven agencies of his ministry at the secretariat. He said the tariff commission chairman would lead the prospered committee as the country needs to keep its business interest unharmed. Like many other countries, economists and analysts here in Dhaka also expressed apprehension about probable negative impact of UK’s exit from the EU. Among those are losing duty benefits on Bangladesh’s exports to UK, decline in remittance inflow and volatility in the foreign exchange market. Bangladesh is now enjoying 12.5 per cent duty benefit on its export to EU countries including the UK. But the duty benefit would discontinue for UK once the country departs from the block. Tofail said 54 per cent of the country’s readymade garment exports went to the EU with the United Kingdom being the third largest importing country. He said the local RMG exporters would need assistance to tide over the difficulties created because of the Brexit which already sparked the fall of both the EURO and the Pound. The Pound has fallen to Tk 103 from Tk 118, he said. Tafail said our large neihghbour India recently announced rupee 6,000 crore assistances for the RMG exports. Our RMG exporters might face adverse impact following such programme in India, he noted. Tofail, however, hoped that benefits from the UK would continue as the country’s relation with the UK is very good. He also hoped that the benefits from the other EU for Bangladesh would continue. According to Export Promotion Bureau, Bangladesh’s major exports to EU include apparels, vegetables, fruits and agro-products. Besides export income, a major portion of remittance also comes from a large number of non-resident Bangladeshis who have been living in the UK and sending home money for years. Tofail said there might be some manipulation by the dishonest businessmen on fixing the price of sugar. He said the price of per kilogram sugar should not exceed Tk 60 as price of the same quantity of sugar at the mall gate is Tk 48. He said the government would import 1.5 lakh tonnes of salt for industrial uses.
