Ticfa meeting with US in Dhaka today

Business Report :
The seventh round of meetings under the Trade and Investment Cooperation Forum Agreement (Ticfa) will begin in Dhaka on today, Senior Commerce Secretary Tapan Kanti Ghosh said.

It will discuss a wide range of trade and investment issues such as duty, labour rights, trade unionism and market access, he told a group of journalists at his Bangladesh Secretariat office in Dhaka.

The information was shared after a preparatory meeting for the Ticfa talks with a team of United States Trade Representative (USTR), the chief trade negotiation body of the American government.

On November 25, 2013, the US and Bangladesh signed Ticfa to establish an annual forum to identify and address obstacles to increasing bilateral trade and investment.

Bangladesh will again demand duty-free market access of its apparel made from cotton imported from the US, said Ghosh.

Bangladesh wants the US customs to impose duty only on portions where value addition has occurred, not on the whole export value of the apparel product, he said.

For instance, if cotton imported from the US is used to manufacture a garment item in which the value addition amounts to Tk 20, Bangladesh will seek for duty to be imposed on that Tk 20 portion, not on the price of the whole item, he explained.

Bangladesh exported nearly $10 billion-worth garment items to the US last year.

Currently Bangladeshi exporters face a 15.62 percent duty on the export of apparel to the US.

The issue of the revival of Generalised System of Preferences (GSP), that was suspended for Bangladesh in June 2013, will also be discussed during the meeting, said Ghosh.