Despite the global economic crisis, Bangladesh's exports to the European market are on the rise and total exports were about 6.6 billion euros in the first nine months of2011.

Bangladesh's exports registered 38 percent growth in the nine-month period compared to the same period in 2010, European Union's Head of Delegation in Dhaka William Hanna said yesterday.

Hanna came up with the observation while addressing the inaugural session of a two-day international workshop at Sonargaon Hotel in the city.

Not only the duty-free access to the European market, but the qualitative standards of Bangladeshi products helped achieve the growth, he said adding that opportunities are there to further expand Bangladesh's market in Europe.

The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution (BSTI), and Bangladesh Accreditation Board (BAB) jointly arranged the two-day international workshop, 'Conformity Assessment for Asian Developing Economies'.

Dilip Barua, industries minister, said Bangladesh needs conformity assessment for goods and services both at the time of import and export to ensure benefits to everyone, consumers, manufacturers and suppliers, in the supply and demand chain.

“We need a group of professionals with highly technical expertise and skills on conformity assessment to mitigate the growing challenge and demand for export and import,” he said.

Barua hoped that the workshop would be able to depict a concrete roadmap for strengthening and upgrading standardisation infrastructure to achieve regional and international recognition.

He said the government is ensuring the rights of citizen, by introducing Citizen Charter and one stop service centre at almost all government offices.

“Telemedicine, e-commerce, e-service, e-learning, e-governance, e-banking, e-trade are now open with access to all citizens. All of these steps have been taken by the government in order to ensure optimum quality of life through upgrading the quality of products and services," Barua said.

By exchanging knowledge and sharing expertise and ideas in this technical workshop, the participants will certainly be able to enhance their knowledge base and expertise on different issues of conformity assessment, he added.

He appreciated the leadership of the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO), International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), and International Telecommunication Union (ITU) for extending all-out support and cooperation for the successful arrangement of the workshop.

Sixty-five participants representing different specialised areas, such as accreditation officials, policymakers and regulators, industrialists, laboratory professionals, academicians and telecom sector specialists from eight Asian countries, are participating in the workshop.