Bangladesh RMG makers at a WTO dialogue beginning in Geneva today will strongly place their demands, seeking the global platform’s initiative to put forward the agenda of duty-free market access to the developed country. The World Trade Organisation director general Roberto Azevedo invited 20 business leaders from across the world to join the WTO Dialogue with Business to discuss opportunities and challenges that the businesses faced and how the WTO can help. Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association president Siddiqur Rahman is taking part in the dialogue and he would strongly demand WTO steps for duty-free quota-free market access for the least developed countries as per the Hong Kong declaration. The BGMEA leader will express his worry over the delay in Doha round outcomes and growing number of regional trade agreements instead of multilateral rules-based trading system. Mahmud Hassan Khan, vice president of the BGMEA said that Bangladesh wants to see the effective steps from the WTO to ensure duty-free market access in the US and other nations like Russia, South Africa, Brazil and Argentina. He said that BGMEA also wanted to inform the global platform that the Trans Pacific Partnership, an initiative of 12 developed countries, would create adverse impact on trade for least developed countries like Bangladesh. In the dialogue, the BGMEA president would urge the WTO to take lead role to ensure enough policy protection for the LDCs as trade agreement like TPP limited space for the LDCs and distorted the level playing field. Bangladesh will put pressure on the WTO to ensure commercially meaningful market access to all LDCs as the US remained the only developed country to deny duty-free market access to Asian LDCs though Sub-Saharan and Caribbean LDCs enjoy the duty-free market access to the country. In the dialogue, BGMEA president will also present the post Rana Plaza scenario of readymade garment sector in Bangladesh.
