Bangladesh will highlight issues like duty-free and quota-free (DFQF) facilities, Trade Facilitation Agreement, full implementation of the Hong Kong declaration and agricultural negotiation in the ninth ministerial conference to be held in Bali, Indonesia on December 3- 6.
The Commerce Ministry has already held a meeting with related stakeholders to chalk out the priority issues to be highlighted at the ministerial meeting.
“There’s an LDC group. The agenda is 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 issue,” Commerce Secretary Mahbub Ahmed told UNB on Friday.
He said they will also focus on implementation of the decision on services waiver. “We’ve 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.
As per the Hong Kong Declaration 2005, all forms of export subsidies for cotton will be eliminated by developed countries in 2006.
On market access, developed countries will give duty- and quota-free access for cotton exports from least developed countries (LDCs) from the commencement of the implementation period.
Building upon the commitment in the Doha Ministerial Declaration, developed country members, and developing country members, declaring themselves in a position to do so, agreed to implement duty- and quota-free market access for products originating from LDCs as provided for in Annex F to this document.