Published in The Financial Express on Friday, 27 June 2014.
Strengthening BTC to face challenges stressed
Bangladesh Tariff Commission (BTC) should be equipped with skilled manpower and necessary expertise, a leading economist said here today, urging the government to strengthen BTC so it can deal with tariff related issues efficiently, reports BSS.
“I’ll call upon the government to increase its institutional capability to face the gradual changing tariff related challenges as well as opportunities,” Professor Dr Mustafizur Rahman, the economist, told the concluding session of a training programme in the city.
Bangladesh Foreign Trade Institute (BFTI) arranged the five-day training for mid-career officials of the BTC.
BTC Chairman Iqbal Khan Chowdhury, chief executive officer of BFTI Dr Md Mozibur Rahman and member of the BTC Sheikh Abdul Mannan spoke on the occasion.
Prof Dr Mustafiz, also Executive Director of Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), said the BTC should be turned into a knowledge-based institution to deal with ever changing trade related varied issues.
But it is unfortunate that country’s policymakers don’t feel the importance of strengthening the tariff commission, he pointed out.
“They should understand that investment of Taka one means return of Tk 100”, he said.
The economist said the BTC would be the only hope for businessmen to resolve all sorts of trade and tariff related disputes and measures in the coming years.
And at that time, he said, BTC would play an important role in raising Bangladesh’s overseas trade.
Iqbal Khan Chowdhury said strengthening of the tariff commission has become indispensable for the sake of protection of local industries, said BTC chairman.
“I’m optimistic about capacity building of the BTC,” he said.
Dr Mojibur Rahman said BTC was supposed to be a commercial brain in the country but commerce ministry did not take necessary steps to do so as yet.
A total of 20 officials of the tariff commission received the training on ‘Capacity Building on international Trade’.
Among them, microeconomics, macroeconomics, WTO customs valuation agreement, rules of origin, GSP, South South Cooperation, VAT and Supplementary Duty were the topics of the training programme.