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EC team clears Bangladesh of forging GSP certificates

Govt claims

Jasim Uddin Khan
A high profile European Commission (EC) anti-fraud team has cleared Bangladesh of forging certificates that give goods duty free access to the European Union (EU), the government claimed yesterday.
Instead the EC anti-fraud squad believes the fake Generalised System of Preference (GSP) certificates originated in other countries, a government official said.
“They verified all the documents they brought from European countries with the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) and found that these fraudulent GSP certificates were not issued in Bangladesh”, said EPB Vice Chairman Md. Shahab UUah.
The European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) team visited some factories and quizzed officials to check any link with dubious documents but found none involved in the wrongdoings, the top official of the state-run export promotional agency said.
The team further took many new certificate numbers from the EPB since January 1,2005, to crosscheck with customs points of the European countries concerned.
Now the team focused their probe to China and Myanmar suspecting that unscrupulous traders of these two countries exported products by issuing forged GSP certificates.
“If OLAF finds that China or Myanmar is involved in the forgery, EU will impose some restrictions on Chinese textile export to Europe,” Shahab Ullah said.
The team, led by Michael Dittrich, will again come Dhaka in November this year to introduce automated system so that no third country importers get any chance to send products issuing forged GSP certificates.
The OLAF team suggested that Bangladesh should immediately introduce automated system in issuing GSP certificates so that concerned customs officials can verify the certificates online.
OLAF's responsibilities include protecting the European Union's (EU) financial interests through conducting investigation into fraud, corruption and any other irregularities besides misconduct within the EU institutions.
The EC under the GSP offers lower tariffs or duty-free access for imports from 178 developing countries and territories, including Bangladesh to the EU markets.
But a section of dishonest entrepreneurs, including several companies from countries that are not entitled to GSP facilities, import raw materials from China, Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan and use fake certificates while exporting their products to European countries, sources said.
The OLAF team that arrived in Dhaka on April 15 on a 10-day visit tried to identify how a third country people use Bangladesh quota of GSP certificates.
Earlier, the German Customs imposed a 12 percent deposit on suspicious imports due to fears over the widespread abuse of certificates that allow Bangladeshi products a duty-free access.
Later, it lifted the restriction after Bangladesh adopted some measures to check forgery.
The EPB from first January launched a new type of GSP certificate, security seal and stringent policy of distribution.
jasim@thedailystar.net