Bangladesh and the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) are going to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on cooperation among the countries to establish a common market.
Already the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in cooperation with other ministries, is finalising a draft MoU which is to be signed at a convenient time this year, said sources in the foreign ministry and the Economic Relations Division (ERD).
The EEC is the executive body of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) responsible for implementing decisions, upholding EEU treaties and managing the day-to-day business of the EEU.
A senior ERD official, on condition of anonymity, told The Independent that the EEC has sent a draft of the MoU to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the ERD to finalise it.
“After receiving the draft MoU, we sent it to the ministries concerned seeking their opinion. It will create new opportunities for the country to develop trade and business among Bangladesh and the EEC states and also help remove trade barriers and ease investment, as well as free flow of goods, services, investment and skilled labour,” he added.
The draft MoU says: “The parties shall cooperate in regional economic integration development, trade policy, including trade facilitation mechanism, macro-economic analysis, economic cooperation, technical regulations and conformity assessment, sanitary, veterinary sanitary and phytosanitary quarantine measures, financial markets, transport, energy, agriculture, competition policy and anti-trust regulation, government procurement, industry, innovation, customs regulation, intellectual property, services, investment and business development.”
The draft further says: “The parties shall establish a Working Group for cooperation between the EEC and the Government of Bangladesh. The parties shall cooperate in exchanging information and documents on the measures affecting mutual trade, and discussing other issues of mutual interest in trade and economic relations between the member states and Bangladesh. They shall exchange statistic information on the dynamics of trade flows, prepare analytical or other surveys on issues of mutual interest, draw up recommendations in pursuit of the objective to promote cooperation of business communities and associations of the member states and Bangladesh.”
The Republic of Armenia, Republic of Belarus, Republic of Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation are under the EEC. At present, readymade garments and shrimp are exported to EEC states.