Trade facilitation implementation is expected to lowering cost of doing business by 16.5%, said Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industries President Hossain Khaled at a seminar yesterday.
He said it would also help achieve $4bn additional annual export earnings, see foreign direct investment at 3% of GDP and above all 8% growth by the year 2021.
He came up with this statistics at a seminar on “Trade Facilitation Challenges and Issues for Sustainable Growth” organised by the DCCI at its auditorium yesterday.
Khaled said Bangladesh is yet to make any significant achievement as only three out of 38 criteria in trade facilitation have been fulfilled.
Trade plays the fundamental role in industrialisation, product diversification, building productive capacity and inclusive development in Bangladesh, he said.
Khaled said trade volume of Bangladesh stood at $70bn in 2015 with an annual growth 3.8% on average since 2000.
Presenting the keynote paper at the event, Central for Policy Dialogue’s additional research director Khondaker Golam Moazzem identified some barriers to implementing trade facilitation.
These include lack of policy or regulatory framework, operational bottlenecks, lack of coordination among the state-run departments and ignorance of stakeholders.
For trade facilitation, he suggested government formulating an action plan. “Bangladesh is going to be linked with the region through BBIN, BCIM, Asian Silk Road etc. We have to be prepared for that.”
Speaking as the chief guest, Adviser to Prime Minister on Economic Affairs Mashiur Rahman said trade facilitation measures should be pro-industry and pro-investment instead of revenue-oriented.
He urged the government bureaucrats to be more efficient and technically sound to keep pace with the development goals of the government.
NBR Chairman Md Nojibur Rahman said NBR was working hard to facilitate trade in the country after WTO negotiation in Bali back in 2013. “Now Chittagong port takes only 8 hours to release imported goods,” he said.
Director General (Additional Secretary), WTO Cell, Amitav Chakrabarty Amitav Chakrabarty said the main challenge of trade facilitation was the proper coordination among the government agencies. He again called for forming a high-level Trade Facilitation Committee to properly monitor development activities.
