This paper provides an overview of how trade facilitation has been addressed in the WTO to date, and how this may affect Bangladesh’s negotiating strategy on trade facilitation in the upcoming Cancun Ministerial and beyond. The paper also defines the term “trade facilitation”, reviews the...

The ongoing negotiations on non-agricultural market access (NAMA) in the WTO are expected to lead to substantive reductions in the tariff rates on industrial goods in both the developed and the developing countries. Although an agreement on the formula and coefficient(s) is yet to be reached, it...

In the recent past, the issue of whether Bangladesh should take advantage of the EU-GSP under the regional cumulation (RC) facilities has emerged as a highly contentious one. The interests of the influential export-oriented RMG sector and the emerging textile industries appear to be in direct...

The paper is based on the Fifth WTO Ministerial Meeting held in Cancun, Mexico. It aims to reveal the importance of putting the process, outcome and future implications of the Cancun Ministerial under critical and careful scrutiny to draw the necessary insights and lessons related to major...

The present paper titled WTO General Council Decision of July 31, 2004: Interpreting from Bangladesh Perspective was prepared under the CPD’s Trade Policy Analysis (TPA) programme. The TPA programme of CPD was initiated in 1999 in response to a felt need to enhance Bangladesh’s capacity to...

The focus of the paper is to examine the implications of the new Canadian LDC tariff initiative, approved by the Canadian cabinet in December 2002 which provides zero-tariff, zero-quota market access for a large number of exportables from Bangladesh. The possibilities of expansion of Bangladeshi...