Bangladesh wants duty-free market facility for cotton clothes in the United States

Bangladesh has requested duty-free and quota-free market facilities for Bangladeshi garments made from US cotton. At the same time, Bangladesh has demanded to facilitate the existing registration process for the export of medicines and other potential products such as medicines, ceramics and other products besides clothing.

These demands were raised by Bangladesh in the interim meeting of the United States-Bangladesh Trade and Investment Cooperation Forum Agreement (TICFA) in the meeting room of the Ministry of Commerce at the Secretariat on Sunday.

After the meeting, the head of the Bangladesh delegation, Senior Secretary of the Ministry of Commerce, Tapan Kanti Ghosh told reporters that Bangladesh’s garment industry is now much more compliant. Garment workers here can provide duty-free benefits if the United States wants to contribute to improving the lives of poor people.

He said that according to the provisions of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the United States has maintained duty-free benefits for the products of the least developed countries in Africa. Then why can’t Asian countries including Bangladesh get it? We have already improved labor conditions considerably and legal reforms have been introduced.

The senior secretary said, we have argued that Bangladeshi garment products deserve duty-free access to the US market on the whole.

He said that we have asked the United States for technical assistance through which we can increase the production of other products including agriculture and improve the conservation system. At the same time, I have sought help in ensuring standard certification and necessary accreditation for export of agricultural products.

In response to a question from journalists, Tapan Kanti Ghosh said that there was no discussion on labor policy and human rights in the meeting.

He also said that the United States delegation has put forward 11-point proposals to implement the reform program to further improve the labor situation in Bangladesh. Besides, they requested the proper implementation of intellectual property law. In the meeting, Bangladesh requested to provide financial assistance under US International Development Finance Corporation facilities.

Note that the United States is interested in increasing the export of cotton to Bangladesh. The US has already abolished the double fumigation system for cotton imports. Because of this, the import of cotton from the United States has increased a lot.

According to data from the Bangladesh Textile Mills Association, the market share of US cotton in Bangladesh was 9 percent two years ago. It has now increased to about 14 percent after the abolition of the double fumigation system.

In this situation, Bangladesh has proposed to provide duty-free export facility to RMG products produced in Bangladesh using cotton imported from the United States.

AH