Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed yesterday said there is no barrier to retaining the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) facilities in the US market as Bangladesh has fulfilled all the 16 conditions tagged with the GSP revival process, reports UNB.
“We’ve met all the 16 conditions. Now, there’s no bar to getting back GSP,” he told reporters at the Secretariat after a meeting with a delegation of Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety.
Alliance Executive Director and former US Ambassador in Dhaka James F Moriarty led the delegation.
A US delegation, led by Assistant United States Trade Representative Michael J
Delaney, is scheduled to arrive here on September 13 for a two-day visit to asses the progress made in the RMG sector in line with the US Action Plan announced after the Tazreen and Rana Plaza disasters.
“They’ll visit our factories. I hope they’ll be satisfied with the tremendous progress we have made,” said the commerce minister.
He said the USTR team will hold meetings with three secretaries – Commerce, Foreign and Labour – and discuss all the related issues. “It’s my belief that the suspension of GSP on Bangladesh will be withdrawn.”
The United States, however, does not provide GSP facilities for RMG products from any country. Bangladesh used to get this special duty benefit for other products except RMG.
The US President’s June 2013 decision to suspend Bangladesh’s trade benefits under the GSP programme resulted in US imports of GSP-eligible products from Bangladesh becoming ineligible for duty-free treatment.
In 2012, the total value of US imports from Bangladesh under GSP was $34.7 million; the top GSP imports from Bangladesh included tobacco, sports equipment, porcelain china, and plastic products.
The commerce minister said the overall export to US saw a rise even after the suspension of GSP benefit in the US market.
Bangladesh has long been pressing the US authorities to restore the preferential trade benefit under the GSP.
