Bangladesh Foreign Minister M Morshed Khan said a national task force will be formed shortly with representations from ministries concerned and different trade bodies to address the WTO issues properly.
"We still don''t have a national task force for addressing WTO issues. Roles of different ministries and trade bodies have changed to a great extent. It is high time to prepare ourselves to improve our bargaining capacity in the international forum," he noted.
The foreign minister was speaking as chief guest at a roundtable on ''the trade and industry''s expectations from economic diplomacy which is claimed to be the corner-stone of the government''s policy'' organised by Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) at its conference room in Dhaka. Apart from the WTO issues, the foreign minister also underscored the need for addressing intellectual property rights properly.
Trade barriers for countries like Bangladesh are becoming stronger and higher, Morshed Khan added. Citing an example, he added French export to the US market amounted to US$31 billion and they paid duties and taxes of around $250 million.
On the other hand, Bangladesh''s export to the same market valued at $2.3 billion and the country had to pay duties and taxes of about $230 million, he said terming this as an uneven playing field for the country''s exporters.
Leaders of other chambers and businessmen also took part in the discussion.
European Union, Canada and Australian markets. Light engineering and pharmaceutical products have good potentials to those markets, he added.