Pvt sector should strive to stand on its own feet: Stakeholders

Foreign trade experts and stakeholders have asked the country's private sector to enhance its capacity to deal with the challenges stemming from Bangladesh's graduation from the least developed country club.  

At a roundtable in Dhaka on Saturday, they also advised the government to take initiatives to ensure ease of doing business and reduce the cost of doing business.

"The private sector plays a major role in graduation. Its focus now should be on capacity building, as the government will no longer be able to provide businessmen with subsidies and protection," Mostafa Abid Khan, senior fellow of the Policy Research Institute, said at the roundtable.  

At the event, titled "Outcome of the 12th WTO Ministerial Conference" and organised by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh (ICAB), Economic Relations Division (ERD) Secretary Sharifa Khan said the sector needs to reduce dependence on the government in order to stand on its own feet.  

At the same time, she emphasised the ease of doing business and taking adequate measures in this regard.

Referring to a World Bank study, Ferdous Ara Begum, chief executive officer of Business Initiative Leading Development (BUILD), said if cargo loading and unloading time at the country's ports can be reduced by one day, exports will increase by more than 7%.

"Similarly, if logistics cost were 17% less and traffic speed on the highways at 40 km, the overall export of the country would have been increased by 19%," she added.

Bangladesh is going to graduate officially from least developed country status in 2026. With the graduation, the country's exports will lose duty-free benefits, except in the European Union market.

As a least developed nation, Bangladesh now enjoys relaxed intellectual property rights in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals items. But the facility will no longer be available after 2026. This means if Bangladesh cannot produce its own active pharmaceutical ingredients (API), it will have to spend more on raw materials, which may increase the price of medicines by two or three times.

Against such a backdrop, the experts called for immediate measures by the pharmaceuticals sector.

Md Hafizur Rahman, director general of the WTO Cell of the commerce ministry, said the challenges to and benefits for countries graduating from least developed nation status were not discussed until the World Trade Organization's (WTO) 12th Ministerial Conference in Geneva in June this year.

Hafizur Rahman, who attended the conference at the WTO headquarters, said this time the issue got recognition when Bangladesh brought it to the discussion table.

It will come up for discussion in the next conference, which he feels is a "great achievement" for Bangladesh.

The roundtable debated whether political policies rather than trade dominate WTO decision-making.   

"We only talk about facilities from the WTO, but we do not discuss the obligations to the WTO," commented Zaidi Sattar, chairman of the Policy Research Institute (PRI), adding, "Bangladesh is one of the top WTO beneficiaries".

Among others, Md Shahadat Hossain, president of ICAB, Manzur Ahmed, advisor of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI), Md Humayun Kabir, former president of ICAB and Shubhashish Bose, chief executive officer of ICAB, addressed the programme.