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Bangladesh Commerce Adviser
Dr Hossain
Zillur Rahman has stressed the need for building trade capacity to
utilise the opportunity that came out in the recent WTO talks.
"Negotiations at WTO and other fronts are critical, but what we do
at home is even more important," he told the dialogue.
The Centre for Policy
Dialogue (CPD)
organised the dialogue titled 'Collapse of Recent WTO Talks and
Bangladesh: Experience and Options' with its chairman Prof Rehman
Sobhan in the chair and participants included economists,
researchers, academics, bureaucrats, trade experts and the members of
Bangladesh delegation to the recent WTO mini-ministerial.
The speakers expressed
satisfaction
over the progress made in favour of Bangladesh during the talks and
stressed the need for preparing the country for future talks as they
expect the activities of Doha Round to resume in September this year.
Dr Hossain Zillur Rahman
called upon
the policymakers to spot the opportunities out of the WTO talks and
advance those opportunities through building partnerships within the
country among the government, private sector, think-tank bodies and
individual trade experts.
He also emphasised on
building
partnerships with neighbouring countries and other trading partners
in the WTO to derive maximum benefit out of it. "We have to remain
alert about the opportunities," he said, adding that Pakistan and
Sri Lanka tapped better market access in the Hong Kong Ministerial
than the LDCs.
Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya
suggested
locking-in the progress so far made in the Doha Round like NAMA text
on duty-free and quota-free market access and recognition of
Bangladesh as disproportionately affected country (DAC).
Enhanced preparation for
the issues
including tariff lines for DAC, rules of origin and Mode-4 request
list while engaging in other outstanding issues of anti-dumping rules
and extension of geographical indication under TRIPS was also
emphasised. (Source: The New Nation)
August 21, 2008
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