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and paperboard, articles of paper, tanning or dyeing extracts, tannins and their derivatives, and more.

As an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with Japan has already been signed, Bangladesh has a good example of signing a deal with a major trading partner, Commerce Secretary Mahbubur Rahman said.

Therefore, it would not be difficult to sign the CEPA with South Korea as the country has already expressed eagerness in the matter, he added.

Once Bangladesh is graduated to a developing nation from the group of least developed countries (LDCs), the country will have to face duty because of losing the preferential market access. Therefore, it is in Bangladesh’s best interest to sign trade deals with major trading partners as a measure to retain the duty-free market access in the post-LDC era, he said.

The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in a recent report said Bangladesh could lose more than $17.5 billion in exports following its LDC graduation.

As an LDC, Bangladesh has been enjoying duty-free-quota-free (DFQF) access to the South Korean market of about 95 percent (4000+) products under the Asia-Pacific Trade Agreement (APTA) and WTO arrangements since 2008.