The Centre for Policy Dialogue yesterday criticised the US for its decision to leave Bangladesh out of the list of countries granted trade benefits recently. “It was bad as Bangladesh did not regain the GSP,” said Debapriya Bhattacharya, distinguished fellow of the think-tank. “Compared to other countries, Bangladesh has not been in such a bad shape that it was wise to do the unjust for the country.” He was speaking at a discussion on the apparels sector at Brac Inn in the capital. The discussion was organised by CPD in partnership with Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung’s (FES) country office. The US left out Bangladesh from the list of 122 nations for whom US President Barack Obama on June 29 re-authorised the generalised system of preferences (GSP), the US’s biggest scheme for the world’s poor nations. The reason for the exclusion was Bangladesh’s failure to fulfil all the 16 conditions the Obama administration had laid out when it revoked the privilege two years ago on grounds of poor workplace safety and labour rights. Debapriya said the issue however should not be wholly politicised. “It can’t be said that we have no faults at all. Besides, the US is a major market, so it would not be strategically right to make the country an opponent for political reasons.” The economist said the country should not get upset and give up. “We have to pursue the issue. It is our due rights among all the international rules. We can’t lose due rights out of anger or resentment.” Prof Rehman Sobhan, chairman of CPD, who chaired the dialogue, also vented his anger. He said the GSP has been given to countries X, Y or Z but not Bangladesh. “Obviously, there are many constraints on Bangladesh in terms of what the country should do,” he said, adding that there has to be an analysis of compliance behaviour and labour conditions in the supply chain leading to the US. “Are the workers in all these countries with the GSP status living in the sort of workers’ paradise?” Sobhan said the analysis should be brought on the table and presented to the US government as a comparative analysis of the objectivity determining the decision-making. The US GSP programme promotes economic development by eliminating duties on up to 5,000 types of products when imported from the 122 countries on the list. The beneficiaries of the new scheme include South Asian nations such as India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Afghanistan. Although only 5 percent of Bangladesh’s exports to the US used to be covered by the GSP before it was revoked in mid-2013, the duty benefit was an opportunity for the non-traditional sectors to widen their market share in the world’s largest economy. Garment, which accounts for 95 percent of Bangladesh’s exports to the US, is not one of the products covered by the GSP.
