Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed on Tuesday claimed in Parliament that the USA is not providing Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) facilities to Bangladesh on ‘political ground’, reports UNB. The made the claim while responding to a supplementary question from Jatiya Party MP Selim Uddin in the House. “Providing GSP facilities solely depends on the USA. It won’t be mentioned here why they (USA) are not giving these facilities. But I think the reason is political,” he said. Tofail said the USA does not give Bangladesh products duty- and -quota-free access to its market and they have stopped the GSP facilities, too. “We’ve fulfilled all the conditions that they have tagged to avail the GSP facilities. It’s unfortunate that we’re yet to get the GSP facilities even though the conditions were fulfilled,” he said. Meanwhile, the government refused to renew the licence of any Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) company in 2015-16 fiscal year as they failed to abide by related laws and rules. Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed said this in Parliament on Tuesday while responding to a starred question from M Afzal Hossain (Kishoreganj-5). He also said no MLM company has so far applied in the current fiscal to the government for running its business. The minister mentioned that the government enacted the MLM Activities (Control) Act, 2013, formulated MLM Activities (Control) Rules 2014 and amended the rules 2014 so that no one can cheat people in the name of MLM business. As per the law, he said, if anyone runs the MLM business without taking licence, he or she will be awarded 5-10 years’ imprisonment and fined Tk 50 lakh. All deputy commissioners and superintendents of police have been directed to take action if anyone runs the MLM business violating the existing laws. Another report adds: Australian High Commissioner in Dhaka Julia Niblett will call on Commerce Minster Tofail Ahmed at 11.00 am at the secretariat in the city on Wednesday. Australia is a development a major development partner of Bangladesh since independence.
