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WTO chief to discuss progress of Bali package with Bangladesh

Roberto Azevedo due Tuesday

Refayet Ullah Mirdha
World Trade Organisation Director General Roberto Azevedo will arrive in Dhaka on Tuesday for a two-day visit to discuss trade-related issues with government officials and private sector entrepreneurs.
Azevedo will attend meetings, especially on the progresses in the Bali package, during his first visit to Bangladesh after taking charge of the global body for international trade in September last year, WTO said in a statement yesterday.
The immediate-past WTO DG Pascal Lamy visited Bangladesh in April 2012.
In December last year, Azevedo successfully negotiated the Bali package, which was adopted after a hectic negotiation, in the Indonesian resort city Bali in the ninth WTO Ministerial Conference.
In Bali, the WTO member countries agreed on issues of food security, trade facilitation and LDC package.
"We will discuss the progresses of implementation of the LDC package that was adopted in the Bali
Ministerial Conference, as Bangladesh is also a member of the LDCs," Mahbub Ahmed, senior secretary of the commerce ministry, told The Daily Star by phone.
In the LDC package, the developed countries agreed on increasing the percentage of duty-free access of goods originated from the least developed countries.
The developed countries agreed on providing duty-free market access to all products originated from the LDCs in the WTO's Hong Kong Ministerial Conference in 2005.
But the commitments were not followed in some cases showing an excuse of the Doha Development Agenda.
Ahmed said Bangladesh now enjoys duty-free access for all its products to almost all developed countries. Bangladesh enjoys such access for 97 percent of its products to the US, but not for apparel items.
Bangladesh wants to enjoy the duty-free facility for all its products to the US before the next WTO Ministerial Conference, Ahmed said.
As a result, garment exporters have to pay 15.61 percent duty to the US customs where China, the largest global apparel supplier, pays only 3 percent despite being a developed country.
Bangladesh paid $746 million as duty to the US customs for exporting a little above $5 billion worth of garment items in 2012.
"We will also discuss this US duty issue with Azevedo and highlight Bangladesh's success stories in different business sectors," the secretary said.
The ministry will also shed light on the progress Bangladesh made in workplace safety and labour rights after the Rana Plaza collapse, he said.
Azevedo is expected to meet Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed and hold a meeting with the business community.