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GSP Benefit

Tofail disagrees with US report

Refayet Ullah Mirdha
Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed yesterday disagreed with the USTR review report over Bangladesh's regaining the GSP benefit to the US market, and affirmed that Bangladesh made a substantial progress on workplace safety issue.
The United States Trade Representative (USTR) in a statement on Wednesday said Bangladesh made some important progress, but must do more to address the worker rights and worker safety issues that led American President Barack Obama to suspend the trade benefit.
But speaking to The Daily Star by phone, Tofail said, "Bangladesh has made a lot of progress in the areas of labour rights and improvement of safety standards over the last one year. Still, the United States is saying that we need to improve a lot."
"Even the USAID (United States Agency for International Development] in a recent survey said that Bangladesh has progressed a lot on the issues of workplace safety and labour rights.
"During my last month's visit to the US, I have shown to some Congressmen the USAID report," the minister said.
According to him, the US is saying so in an excuse for not giving the GSP benefit to Bangladesh.
He also said the US was now making a "false claim" about torturing a worker in Bhaluka of Mymensingh.
"The claim of torturing the worker in Bhaluka is false. The victim is not a worker and he did not file any case in this regard yet," Tofail added.
ft seems that the US will not give the trade benefit even if Bangladesh meets all the conditions, he said.
According to him, fulfilment of
some conditions is time consuming - like inspection of buildings and enforcement of new laws in the export processing zones.
But the officials from the US can visit Bangladesh to see the progress made over the last one year, he said.
On Wednesday, US Trade Representative Michael Froman said, “The Obama administration has been engaging the Bangladesh government and stakeholders over the past year to press for changes to address the worker rights and worker safety issues."
"We are seeing some improvements that move us closer to our shared goal of protecting workers from another workplace tragedy such as the April 2013 Rana Plaza building collapse, including a significant increase in the registration of unions.
"However, we remain concerned about the large number of factories that have yet to be inspected, the lack of progress on needed labour law reforms, and continuing reports of harassment of and violence against labour activists who are attempting to exercise their rights," Froman said in a statement.