Bangladesh may get back the trade privileges in the US market, if it brings some positive changes in the apparel sector as well as progresses in the shrimp sector, said US Ambassador to Bangladesh Dan W Mozena yesterday.
“I hope, as Bangladesh transforms the apparel sector and also makes progress in the shrimp sector that GSP can be restored at some point, because that’s a necessary stepping stone,” he said.
Mozena was speaking at a roundtable discussion titled “America-Bangladesh Relations: Economic and Social Perspective” organised by the Center for NRB, an organisation for non-resident Bangladeshis, in the capital.
The US government has recently suspended Bangladesh from the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) which allows duty-free entry of over 5,000 goods to the US market from least developed countries.
Mozena said: “Bangladeshi-American diaspora play an important role in building the most important part of our partnership. The people-to-popel ties strengthen America-Bangladesh relations.”
Speaking on the occasion, Center for NRB Chairperson MS Shekil Chowdhury said: “The Center for NRB is looking into the faces of the American-Bangladeshis living in the US. We must take care of them, give them a better life.
“We hope both the nations will consider their views and try to give them comfort. Not only in the US, but in the other countries as well,” he said.
Economist Dr Mahbub Ali and Young Generation representative Wacef Chowdhury delivered a keynote speech.
Former commerce ministers Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury and GM Kader, former minister Major Hafiz Uddin, former finance and trader adviser to a caretaker government Dr Mirza Azizul Islam, former information commissioner and ambassador Mohammad Jamir, Rupali Bank Chairman Ahmed R Kabir and former foreign secretary CM Shafi Sami, and Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) Research Director Khandakar Golam Moazzem, among others, spoke on the occaion.
