Russia has assured Bangladesh to provide duty-free and quota-free market access for Ready Made Garments (RMG) products soon.
Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed said this to reporters after having a discussion with a seven-member visiting Russian delegation at Bangladesh Secretariat in Dhaka yesterday. Russia's Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Levin Segey Lvovich, led the delegation.
Despite a good potential market of Russia for Bangladesh, there is no possibility of export of Bangladeshi products, due to some complexity of duty and financial debt, commerce minister.
“Acc
ording to the WTO's decision, Russia is providing duty free and quotas free trade facilities to export 71 products to Bangladesh. But this trade facility is not provided in the main export of ready made garment (RMG) product of Bangladesh,” Tofail said.
Bangladesh has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for becoming part of the Eurasian Economic Commission a few days ago to remove trade complexity with Russia.
Within a few days Bangladesh will be the member of the commission. There will be no complications in trading with Russia.
The minister said that Russia wants to be a 'World Expo' organiser of 2025. This will be decided in November. “Bangladesh is a member of the Forum. In this regard, Russia wants Bangladesh's support,” Tofail said.
Commerce minister said member countries determine the location of the 'World Expo' by voting. This year, Russia, France, Japan and Azerbaijan are interested to be the organisers of the fair.
Tofail Ahmed said that Russia is a close friend of Bangladesh. Russia provides easy access to Bangladesh on various issues.
“Russia has invested about $ 12 billion to build nuclear power plants in Bangladesh. It is the largest foreign exchange in the country.”
A total of 2,400MW electricity will be generated. It will be operational in 2024.
He also said there is a lot of demand for potato produced in Russia. Russia has taken initiative to export potato to Bangladesh.
Bangladesh has exported goods worth $464.62 million in the last fiscal year (FY 2016-2017), while imported goods worth $437.10 million at the same time.
Russia will be the export market for Bangladesh after the elimination of the complexity of export trade.
Commerce Secretary Shuvashish Bose, additional Secretary Munshi Shafiul Haque, WTO Cell DG Munir Chowdhury and Additional Secretary (Export-2) Tapan Kanti Ghosh were present.