The American Apparel and Footwear Association (AAFA) along with 270 other trade bodies has urged the US Congress for reactivating the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) for the convenience of the American traders.
Bangladesh will again raise the issue of the reinstatement of the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) of the US in the Trade and Investment Cooperation Forum Agreement (Ticfa) meeting in Washington in November, said Tapan Kanti Ghosh, senior secretary to the commerce ministry, yesterday.
Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed says the Trade and Investment Cooperation Framework Agreement (Ticfa) with the United States will not be effective until restoration of the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) for Bangladesh.
What does the US gain by not restoring the GSP facility? And what do we lose?
Though US-Bangla interactions have evolved on a love-hate trajectory, an exception is made in relation to the GSP facility for Bangladesh. Dhaka's obsession with it has not been reciprocated by Washington.
It is very unfortunate. The world knows that conditions are getting better in Bangladesh. We are working closely with the government, the ILO, the EU and others.
I am not in support of the fact that Bangladesh was left out of the GSP programme by the US. It smells of double standards.
A recently held seminar in the city organized by the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) brought together union representatives, business leaders in garments industry and other stakeholders to deliberate on the issue of compliance.
GSP is always riddled with the subjectivity of the benefit granting countries. Indeed, trade analysts would recognise that this element of subjectivity is one of the fundamental problems with the GSP regimes.
Bangladesh made unprecedented progress in labour and safety standards over the last two years, which had raised hopes for the country of regaining trade benefits from the United States.
