A national standing committee should be formed immediately to identify the environmental dangers that may harm Bangladesh's future trade, specially production and export of its products, speakers at a dialogue said yesterday.

They called for hammering out solutions to the environment related problems Bangladesh may face in the coming WTO regime.

The speakers said Bangladesh has not yet given enough attention to the environmental issues but the environmental requirements set by importing countries will adversely affect the competitiveness and market access of Bangladeshi products.

The dialogue on 'Environmental Debates in the WTO: Defining Bangladesh's Interest' was organised by the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) at the CIRDAP auditorium in Dhaka yesterday. CPD Chairman Professor Rehman Sobhan presided over it.

Speaking at the dialogue, Environment and Forest Minister Shajahan Siraj said the least developed countries (LDCs) did not see any positive measures on trade and environment issues that were discussed in the WTO meetings so far held.

The commerce and environment ministries with the help of local experts can jointly prepare a list of environmental goods and services (EGS) applicable for Bangladesh, he said citing example of India where EGS list has been prepared.

CPD Executive Director Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya stressed the need for identifying the barriers in this regard, saying the chambers should come up with detail information about the extent of the problems related to environmental requirements.

"Also, there is a need for having a cost assessment of environmental upgradation," he added.

Commerce Secretary Suhel Ahmed Chowdhury said market access is the major concern for

Bangladesh but he admitted that the country has not given enough attention to the environmental issues.

Emphasising a comprehensive effort to deal with the matter Environment Secretary Sabihuddin Ahmed said environment issues should not be addressed separately.

Dr Fahmida A Khatun, a research fellow of the CPD made a presentation on the topic.

Intensive use of chemicals in agriculture, industrial pollution, deforestation, land degradation for shrimp culture and dumping of wastes are major trade related environmental concerns for Bangladesh, she observed in the paper.

Fahmida said Bangladesh should closely monitor and participate in the procedures of the multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) to extract benefit from such agreements and should find out which MEAs are affecting or may affect its trade performance.