Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed said Bangladesh is likely to avail preferential treatment for its services export before the next ministerial meeting of the WTO as per a Bali decision.
He informed a press briefing at the Commerce Ministry yesterday about the outcome of the high-level meeting of World Trade Organisation (WTO), held in Geneva, Switzerland on February 5-6.
At the meeting of the WTO Services Council on February 5, the members discussed measures which would support the growth of services trade in least-developed countries (LDCs) by providing their services exports with preferential treatment.
This is regarded as an important step in implementing a key Bali decision in support of LDCs, which aims to enhance their participation in world services trade.
At the meeting, over 25 members indicated services sectors and modes of supply from LDCs to which they would give preferential treatment.
Tofail Ahmed said the services waiver will help Bangladesh boost its trade and commerce in achieving middle-income status by 2021.
Under the preferential market facility scheme from the developed and developing countries, Bangladesh will get the services waiver to expand business.
It is expected to benefit Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES), business operations processing service, auditing, accounting, financial service, hotel, tourism and independent professionals like engineers, architects, landscape designers, doctors, nurses, lawyers and also computer related service people.
The countries that had participated in the meeting said they considered the demands of service waivers by the developing countries realising importance of it. Tofail Ahmed said the countries would soon issue a notification to the WTO after internal approval of the respective countries on preferential market scheme.
On behalf of the LDCs, he urged the developed and developing countries to notify the preferential market facility for the service sector like as productive sector’s duty and quota-free market facilities.
As per the decision of the high-level meeting, the Council for Trade in Service will hold a meeting by March 2015, where a progress report on the LDCs would be placed.
Preferential facilities provider countries will notify the preferential market facilities sector and try to submit it to the WTO by July this year.
Commerce minister described the meeting as an important step towards implementing a key Bali decision in support of the LDCs, which is expected to help enlarge the participation in global trade of services.
He hoped the visa process and finding overseas jobs would be easier if the services waiver was given to the LDCs including Bangladesh.
On the sidelines of the Geneva meeting, Tofail Ahmed held a meeting with the WTO director general Roberto Azevedo, where he had presented the outcome of a high-level meeting and urged to implement the Bali package.
The minister also held separate meetings with secretary general of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Mukhisa Kituyi and Uganda’s trade, industry and cooperatives minister Amelia Anne Kyambadde.
He urged the Uganda minister to extend to 2021 the duration of the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) waiver for the pharmaceutical products.
TRIPS will expire on December 31 this year.