Ticfa talks today in Dhaka

The third round of bilateral talks under the Trade and Investment Cooperation Forum Agreement between Bangladesh and the US is set to be held today in Dhaka, with the overhang of hope of reinstatement of trade privileges to the American market.

At the meeting, Bangladesh will highlight the progresses made since the Rana Plaza collapse in improving workplace safety and labour rights under the guidelines of the US-provided 16-point action plan.

“We will mainly discuss the labour rights issue at the Ticfa meeting,” said Mikail Shipar, secretary to the ministry of labour and employment.

Of the major progresses, the government has amended the labour law with full freedom of association and created the Directorate of Inspection for Factories and Establishments for monitoring workplace safety.

The other major progresses are recruitment of nearly 300 fresh factory inspectors and inspection of nearly 3,800 factories by three agencies -- Accord, Alliance and national initiative -- to fix structural, fire and electrical safety flaws.

The government, with support from the International Labour Organisation, has developed a publicly accessible database of all active export-oriented garment factories.

The database is available at the website of the DIFE, according to the document submitted to the United States Trade Representative, the chief trade negotiation body of the American government.

The commerce ministry has already submitted the progress reports to the USTR twice but on both the occasions the response was the same: while the US government lauded the improvements, a lot more needs to be done to regain the Generalised System of Preferences status.

Also at the meeting issues like market access for local products      to the US market, fair prices of goods, technology transfer, infrastructure development and US investment in Bangladesh would be raised, the commerce ministry said in a statement.

The US side will bring forward issues like tariff and non-tariff barriers faced by American companies for export to Bangladesh, pharma-ceuticals exports guideline specification, intellectual property rights, regional connectivity and investment in the energy sector, enforcement of agreements, government purchase and labour issues.

The commerce secretary will lead the Bangladesh side in the meeting and the assistant USTR the American side.

Before the suspension of GSP in the middle of 2013, only 0.54 percent of Bangladesh's total exports in a year were covered by the scheme.

Products like dried fish, ceramics and plastic goods enjoyed the benefit but not the main export earner: apparel.

In fiscal 2015-16, Bangladesh exported goods worth $6.22 billion to the US, the highest for a single destination.

The first Ticfa meeting was held in Dhaka in April 2014 and the second in Washington in November 2015.