European Union is not considering any change in the duty advantage that Bangladesh enjoys for the market.
“No tariffs, no taxes, no duty; goods from Bangladesh enter the European market without any restriction and that will continue to be the case,” said EU Ambassador to Bangladesh William Hanna yesterday.
The ambassador said neither the EU’s official position stated by High Representative Catherin Ashton on January 9 nor the resolution of the EU parliament taken last week mentioned anything about changing the GSP facilities.
Bangladesh currently enjoys duty-free and quota-free market access to European market under Everything but Arms initiative and over 50% of its total exports of about $30bn goes to the market.
Any change in GSP facility will harm the over $20bn readymade garment industry and four million jobs in the sector.
The ambassador categorically said sourcing from Bangladesh was also important for Europe.
“It is also important for Europe. We also want to continue to source here. Our companies will continue to invest,” he said.
Hanna said there would be a review of GSP in the next couple of months and two specific areas needed to be improved.
Slow process of recruitment of factory inspectors and developing a transparent factory database are the major concerns for European Union, Hanna said.
“These are the two remaining concerns and we will continue our discussions with the government and we will review it in the next few months,” he said.
He said recruitment of new inspectors was slower than expected and the transparent database where all the information on which factories are inspected would be stored.
The government on May 4 committed to EU and the US to recruit 200 additional inspectors by December last year but it has only been able to recruit a fraction of that.
EU not considering about the commitment made under the Sustainability Compact in July last year, Hanna said it covered three areas – labour situation, laws and implementation.
“I think a number of measures have been put in place and some more needs to be done,” he said.
About his recent meeting with European buyers, he said they were putting money on the table to improve the conditions of the factories from where they buy products.
“And that is promising. They are going to carry out their inspections and they hope all the inspections take place in the next nine months,” he said.
It was very difficult to move around in Bangladesh for the last few months but the situation has been improved and it is expected that they would be able to carry out the inspection, Hanna said.