Bangladesh has identified over 250 products to drop from its sensitive list to trade off with the Saarc member countries in the next meeting of South Asian Free Trade Agreement (Safta) negotiation.
"We'll request the Safta contracting states to shorten their respective lists of sensitive products in exchange of the products we can leave out," a senior official told the news agency yesterday.
Bangladesh has a total 1,300 plus products in its sensitive list that constitutes 25 percent of total tariff lines. Other LDCs also maintained 25 percent while India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka 20 percent of their total tariff lines.
Finalisation of the sensitive lists still remained unresolved along with rules of origin (ROO) and revenue loss compensation mechanism for the least developed members like Bangladesh to make the Safta effective on schedule.
A meeting of the Committee of Experts (CoE), consisting of officials from the member countries, is scheduled in Kathmandu from November 29 to December 1 to discuss the outstanding issues.
The meeting will be held just a month before the agreement is scheduled to become effective from January 1, 2006. Saarc leaders during their summit in Dhaka on November 12-13 agreed to instruct their respective officials to conclude negotiation on the issues.
As part of a preparatory meeting of the Safta negotiation at the CoE meeting in Kathmandu, the Ministry of Commerce has convened an inter-ministerial meeting today to set the country's strategy aiming to conclude the negotiation.
The 250 products would be coming up at the meeting for the stakeholders' views whether Bangladesh could offer the contracting countries with a request to cut items from their respective lists of sensitive products, officials said.
Earlier, Bangladesh requested dropping of 36 items from Bhutan's sensitive list, 144 items from Sri Lanka's list, 393 from Nepal's list, 286 from Pakistan's list, 318 from India's list and 134 from the Maldives' list.
Officials said Bangladesh requested India and Pakistan in the last CoE meeting in Kathmandu to drop RMG, the country's major export earning sector, from their respective sensitive lists. Both India and Pakistan agreed to convey their decision in the next CoE meeting.
They added that Bhutan also requested Bangladesh to drop apples and oranges from the sensitive list of Bangladesh, and this would be discussed in the inter-ministerial meeting today.
On the rules of origin, officials said, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka disagreed with Bangladesh's proposal to allow 20 percent value addition in RMG under a product specific rule, a relaxation from the general rule member countries have agreed on the issue.
The issue would be resolved in the next CoE meeting, according to an official.
He said negotiation on the mechanism for compensation for revenue loss by the LDCs would be the most crucial issue to conclude, indicating whether the Safta would become effective as per schedule.
During the Saarc Summit in Dhaka, he added, the standing committee discussed the issue whether a mechanism could be devised within six months from January 1, 2006, but the least developed members preferred it to be settled before the commencement of the agreement.
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