Professor Mustafizur Rahman and Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya comment on upcoming Ninth WTO Ministerial Conference in Bali, published in the Financial Express on Monday, 2 December 2013.
WTO ministerial begins tomorrow
Dhaka fails to bridge gap with LDCs
Jasim Khan
Bangladesh is not well-prepared this time to bargain at the upcoming ninth ministerial conference of World Trade Organisation (WTO) to be held in Bali, Indonesia on December 3- 6, sources have said.
The country has failed to list issues concerning its interest and also failed to coordinate with other least developed countries (LDCs) and take up new issues as a leader of the LDC group due mainly to political unrest, change of ministers and some sort of uncertainty facing officials, according to the sources.
Commerce Minister GM Quader will not attend the ministerial meeting, as he will remain busy with submission of his nomination paper. His personal secretary Abu Taiob said the minister was not going to Bali, as he was busy doing election campaign.
The minister did not attend office also for over 10 days after his submission of resignation letter on November 10 last along with other ministers. It also hampered preparation for the ministerial meeting.
Besides, traditionally Bangladesh was leading the LDC group. But this year the country is not doing it, because it failed to convene any meeting before the ministerial meeting.
There are conflicts of interest among the LDCs, which have not been settled before the ministerial.
Bangladesh seeks duty-free and quota-free (DFQF) access to the markets of developed countries including the USA. But African countries seek withdrawal of agriculture subsidy, especially the subsidy on cotton export.
One of the major issues Bangladesh is pushing is free movement of labour under the mode-4 section of WTO, but it will not get support from other LDCs due to the difference of interest, according to sources.
The US granted 97 per cent of Bangladeshi products duty-free access to its market in line with the WTO decision taken at the fifth ministerial meeting held in Hong Kong in 2005, except garments, the biggest export item.
Bangladesh now will seek duty waiver on garments at the ninth WTO Ministerial Conference, according to sources.
Commerce Secretary Mahbub Ahmed told the FE that the agenda of the LDC group was yet to be finalised.
“Usually, the agenda is finalised by September. But we’ve conveyed our areas of highlight. And we’ll focus on duty- and quota-free facility” the Commerce Secretary said.
He said they would also focus on implementation of the decision on services waiver. “We already held a meeting with the stakeholders a couple of days back to identify the issues to be highlighted at the meeting,” said the Commerce Secretary.
Mustafizur Rahman, executive director of the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) said the country had to be strict about seeking the duty benefit from the US. For instance, the country’s main export item, readymade garment (RMG), is not entitled to the duty benefit in the American market; it is subjected to payment of 15.30 per cent duty on entry to the US shore.
In 2012, the country paid $746 million as duty to the US customs authority for garment exports worth above $ 5.0 billion, he added.
Mr Debapriya Bhattacharya, economist and distinguished fellow of CPD, said the differences of opinion among LDCs were there, which would hopefully be settled during the session.
“What we can do is we can provide support to their agenda while we can seek their support for our causes,” Mr Debapriya suggested.
Food is considered the basic right and therefore it must be out of the purview of commercialization, said Moin Howlader of Krishok Federation.
EquityBD’s Sayed Aminul Haque said Bangladeshi products like garments and medicine were already in competition globally.
Therefore demanding the DFQF access might raise a counterproductive argument from the developed nations as to giving their multi-national companies (MNCs) unconditional access to the service sector of developing countries.