Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed said the government would discuss with the United States about duty and quota-free access of Bangladeshi garment products under the Bali decisions of WTO.
The discussion could be held at a next WTO meeting, he told reporters yesterday after a meeting of the high-level committee on reviewing and monitoring of World Trade Orgainsation activities.
Commerce Minister presided over the meeting, attended, among others, by Commerce Secretary Hedayetullah Al Mamoon ndc and Additional Commerce Secretary and head of WTO cell in the ministry Amitava Chakrabarty.
“We are working to prepare a road map to realise the benefits of WTO’s Bali decisions. We will talk about intellectual property rights issue at February 5 and 6 meetings of WTO on trade related intellectual property rights in Geneva,” Tofail said.
He said most of the Bangladeshi goods are now out of IP rights provision, though the pharmaceutical products will come under the provision from 2016.
He said Bangladesh wants to keep the pharmaceutical sector out of IP rights provision till 2021.
Tofail claimed the country had already started enjoying duty and quota-free access for 97% of its products under the WTO agreement.
He said the government was now trying to get the facility for garment products too in the US market.
According to commerce ministry sources, Bangladesh along with other 48 least developed countries (LDCs) will raise the issue of getting duty- and quota-free market access to developed and developing countries at the WTO forum.
Officials said the LDCs are also likely to press for preferential market access for their service sector.