FTA with Sri Lanka in October: Tofail

Bangladesh will sign a free trade agreement with Sri Lanka in October this year, Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed said.

He said preparations are underway to strike the FTA with Sri Lanka and to identify products that each side will give duty concessions to the other.

Ahmed also said Dhaka would resume talks with India to enter into a similar pact during Indian commerce minister's visit to Dhaka in a couple of months.

He made the disclosure during an interaction with representatives of Bangladeshi media at the high commission here on Tuesday.

Ahmed said he has extended a verbal invitation to Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu when the two met during an informal WTO ministerial conference in New Delhi and would send a formal invitation soon after his return to Dhaka.

“The Indian high commissioner in Dhaka told me that Mr Prabhu is very keen to visit Bangladesh. So, when I came here, I took the opportunity to invite him,” Ahmed said.

Replying to a question, Ahmed said the India-Bangladesh FTA had been discussed in the past too and would feature again during the talks with Prabhu.

He said Bangladesh must prepare to meet the challenges that FTAs involve.

The FTAs will be important for Bangladesh post-LDC (least developed country) graduation, as the country will lose duty-free benefit from developed and developing countries alike.

India, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan are the three developing countries in South Asia. 

Ahmed said Bangladesh has fulfilled all the three criteria set by the UN Committee for Development Policy for graduating from the LDC category.

The CDP will review Bangladesh's progress in 2021 and the official graduation from the LDC category could finally take place in 2024.

Following the graduation, Bangladesh would probably be given a three-year transition period before it loses duty-free, quota-free market access to the European Union, according to the CDP.

After 2027, provided that it ratifies 27 conventions on human and labour rights, environment and governance, Bangladesh is expected to gain access to the generalised system of preferences plus (GSP+).