Inter-ministerial meeting today to discuss RCEP duty benefit
Bangladesh is preparing to join the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) in a bid to retain duty benefits after making the United Nations status graduation from a least developed country (LDC) to a developing one in 2026.
The commerce ministry will today convene an inter-ministerial meeting, where they will discuss what kind of duty benefits the country would get should it be allowed to join the RCEP following negotiations to this end.
The RCEP is an agreement comprising the world's largest trade bloc, led by China.
The discussion will be held among senior officials to know their opinions about joining the RCEP as Bangladesh could join this trade bloc if it wants, said Senior Commerce Secretary Tapan Kanti Ghosh.
Also, the Bangladesh Trade and Tariff Commission has conducted a study regarding the joining of the RCEP, he added.
In fact, it is very important for Bangladesh to sign the agreement with the RCEP as the country also needs to join the global value chain to retain duty benefits after its LDC graduation.
Earlier, Bangladesh had not shown any interest in joining the RCEP to safeguard its revenue generation from duties on imports.
On the other hand, none of the would-be RCEP signatories had asked Bangladesh to join their ranks prior to its launch in November 2020.
China initiated the RCEP as a free trade agreement among itself, the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and Australia, India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand.
India later refused to join the RCEP after negotiations were formally launched at an Asean summit in Cambodia in November 2020.
In 2017, prospective RCEP member states accounted for a population of 3.4 billion, or 45 percent of the world's population, and about 40 percent of global trade.
The total gross domestic product (GDP) amounted to $49.5 trillion, more than half of which is made up of that of China and India, surpassing the combined GDP of Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) members in 2007.
On January 23, 2017, US President Donald Trump signed a memorandum of understanding that stated the country's withdrawal from the TPP, a move which is seen to have improved the chances of success for the RCEP.
According to estimates by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the GDP of RCEP member states is likely to amount to nearly $250 trillion by 2050.
Bangladesh has long been lobbying major trading partners and economic blocs for signing free trade agreements, comprehensive economic partnerships and preferential trade agreements.
This is because the country may lose $7 billion worth of exports each year because of the erosion of preferential duty benefits after its LDC graduation, according to different studies.
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