Bangladesh requests duty-free access for garments made from US cotton

Fibre2Fashion: Bangladesh recently again urged the United States for duty-free market facility for readymade garments (RMG) made from imported US cotton as preferential access of its exports has long been withheld.

The duty-free-market issue was discussed in the last meeting of the Trade and Investment Cooperation Forum Agreement (TICFA) held in the United States in December last year, said senior secretary in the commerce ministry Tapan Kanti Ghosh, who met senior US trade representative (USTR) officials in Dhaka recently.

USTR representatives assured they will discuss the duty-free issue at home, Ghosh said.

They said the US government does not provide duty-free benefits for RMG for any particular country.

The USTR officials raised the issue of intellectual property-rights violations on counterfeit-goods export as claimed earlier by the American Apparel and Footwear Association and the Paris-based Union des Fabricants, but Ghosh refuted that claim, according to Bangladesh media reports.

Ghosh also sought US support for Bangladesh to get extension on the least developed country (LDC) facility beyond 2026 at World Trade Organisation.