EU pledges to continue support
STAFF REPORTER
The European Union (EU) has assured Bangladesh that it would continue to help the country and even increase its support to 70 per cent, additional secretary of the Economic Relations Division (ERD) (Europe wing) Abul Mansur Md Faizullah has said.
The EU is providing support (to Bangladesh) in three particular sectors and sometimes cutting across sectors, he said at a joint briefing of the reporters after a meeting with an EU delegation yesterday.
Mohammad Mejbahuddin, senior secretary of the ERD, and Ugo Astuto, acting managing director of the Asia and Pacific Department of the European External Action Service, co-chaired the day-long meeting held at the National Economic Councils conference room 2 at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar in the city.
Sources said the EU has emphasised topics like governance, democracy, human rights and migration. Yet to be discussed is the judicial sector, with particular focus on the 16th Constitutional Amendment, freedom of expression, freedom of media and freedom of association in the context of recent incidents. They added that they would provide additional facilities for trade, including making the service sector duty-free.
The EU delegation apparently expressed satisfaction over the trade and business environment in Bangladesh.
The sources also said that issues related to child rights, including child marriage, and the situation in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, will come up for discussion in the first sub-group meeting. The second sub-group meeting on trade and economic cooperation will feature in the new EU trade strategy, key multilateral trade issues, state of play of the sustainability compact, follow-up on key bilateral issues, business climate dialogue, and other trade and economic issues.
The EU delegation apparently promised to help implement the multi-annual indicative programme for 20142020 with the EUs key principles and directions, the Seventh Five-Year Plan and Sustainable Development Goals. For 20142020, the focus is on three sectorsstrengthening democratic governance, food and nutrition security, education and skill development.
As a least developed country (LDC), Bangladesh benefits from a most favourable system under the EUs Generalized Scheme of Preferences, namely, the Everything But Arms (EBA) arrangement. The EBA grants 48 LDCs, including Bangladesh, duty-free quotas and free access to the EU for export of all products, except arms and ammunition.
