Bangladesh has started identifying products in an effort to keep those on the duty-free list of 97 percent tariff lines as decided in the last WTO Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong.
A priority list of products will also be developed to gradually bring them out of the 3 percent sensitive list few countries, including USA, kept for protecting their domestic industries or for other political and economic reasons.
At the same time, Bangladesh will push the countries providing GSP facilities not to put items in the sensitive list.
The strategies were introduced at a meeting at the Ministry of Commerce yesterday, launching the exercise as part of the effort to protect maximum interest of the country out of the given circumstances of WTO.
The meeting, with Commerce Minister Altaf Hossain Chowdhury in the chair, discussed market access and product diversification issues.
Altaf also chaired another meeting on the strategy of services negotiation under Mode-4 followed by the previous one.
Trade body leaders, academics, trade experts, economists and officials put their heads together at the meetings, trying to set the working programmes on the issues.
Earlier, the Ministry formed three committees comprising stakeholders both from the government and private sectors, and asked them to submit three separate recommendations by February 28, a senior Commerce Ministry official said.
He said a high level committee of the government would be formed to evaluate the list of products and other strategies and finalise the strategy of negotiation in the WTO.
The negotiation on the issues in the WTO headquarters in Geneva was supposed to be completed by April 30 this year with the target to complete the Doha Round by the end of this year.
A meeting of World Economic Forum comprising some developed and developing countries in Davos decided that the developed countries would submit their proposals on sensitive list by September while developing countries by December, indicating that the negotiation deadline on Doha Round would be deferred.
However, the Commerce Ministry meetings on the issues aimed at setting out the strategies so that Bangladesh could negotiate its strategy whenever it would be necessary.
Commerce Minister Altaf Hossain Chowdhury called upon the committees to submit their recommendations to the Ministry by the deadline as he disapproved of a plea by the convenor of the Services Committee about a possible delay in submitting their reports.
"It's a challenge for our economy and the people... the deadline will not be extended," he said.
