The government plans to sign two separate free trade agreements with Nigeria and Mali to explore non-traditional markets in the African countries for enhancing bi-lateral trades and tapping the investment potentials.
Besides, Bangladesh Tariff Commission (BTC) also recommended the commerce ministry recently to include an issue related to the vast lands of the two African countries in the deals so Bangladesh could make a proper use of it in the long run.
“The BTC has identified the two African countries for signing two trade deals after conducting a comprehensive feasibility study to find out whether signing of any Free Trade Area Agreement (FTA) or Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) with the African countries will be worthy or not,” said a senior official of the commerce ministry.
The BTC study also revealed that Bangladesh would not be benefitted in the short term if it goes for signing free trade agreements with three other African countries – Morocco, Senegal and Sierra Leone.
Both the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) or Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) on goods and investment with Nigeria and Mali could bring very good results in the long run, opined the BTC survey.
However, an inter-ministerial meeting will be held soon to finalise the recommendations outlined by the BTC.
Meanwhile, the commerce ministry held a meeting at the secretariat on Thursday last to discuss about the possible initiatives to sign the FTA or PTA with two African nations.
An inter-ministerial meeting will also be held soon for finalising the proposal.
Nigeria had already lifted the bar to import various apparel items including shirts, trousers, skirts, blouses, and lace fabrics since last year.
Besides, there are still lot of scopes to export more products like pharmaceuticals, jute, ceramic products, sanitary wares, leather, processed foods, tobacco and shoes in the market.
The nation of 16,247m people, with a per capita income of US$2,533 could be a promising export market for Bangladesh if the potential is properly identified by the private sectors. Export to Nigeria stands at $10.91bn against the import of around $4.71bn, said BTC in its report.
There are scope to export
Bangladeshi products like pharmaceuticals, processed foods, plastic, leather, jute goods, rubber, electronic gadgets, and light engineering products in Nigeria.
According to BTC, there are also ample scope for Bangladeshi products like pharmaceuticals, processed foods and garment items to enter into the untapped market Mali.
The nation of 1,584m people, with a per capita income of US$1,091, could be a promising export market for Bangladesh products. The amount of Bangladeshi export item stands at $1.99bn against the import of $4.76bn.
“We need more time to finalise any deal with any countries. We have just received a feasibility study done by BTC on possible FTA and PTA with Nigeria and Mali, and now we are going to send the proposal to our diplomatic missions in Nigeria and Mali to get their feedback about the prospect and possibilities,” commerce secretary Mahbub Ahmed told the Dhaka Tribune.
The decision to send the proposal to the two Bangladeshi missions in the African countries was made at a commerce ministry meeting held on Thursday last.
