Enamul Hafiz Latifee writes,
It was great indeed representing Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers & Exporters Association-BKMEA at the "Inter-ministerial Meeting related to D-8 Charter Ratification" arranged by Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Bangladesh (MoFA) on 06 October, 2016.
Surely, in such very high voltage meeting, where top-notch officials of a country are present, you have to be very smart to secure your organizational interests in very smart way.
However, the meeting also addressed some ongoing talks related to "#Developing8 Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA)", where Bangladesh could ratify with a reservation.
Well, my opinion concerning the Developing-8, (i.e., multilateral cooperative platform comprising of #Bangladesh, #Egypt, #Indonesia, #Iran, #Malaysia, #Nigeria, #Pakistan, and #Turkey) was as below,
"Dear distinguished attendees, as we know, the Charter of #D8, at it's Article 1, Chapter 1 expresses that, this multilateral economic cooperative forum would promote and enhance joint efforts towards achieving sustainable socio-economic development, would work alleviating poverty, promoting welfare, improving quality of life, and specially, it would eye at strengthening economic, social, technical and scientific ties within the D-8 community, and as if, rest of the Charter contains only Good Contents, I wish, any of us would not give such consent that might restrict us from ratifying it."
Further, when the meeting addressed PTA, and it's harsh Rules of Origin that is proposed to be 40%, my opinion was as below,
"If once, Bangladesh get to be the member of D-8 PTA, then there is way to softening this rule, but if Bangladesh deny now to be the member of D-8 PTA, then, there is no way to change it, and that would make us isolated from the world further."
And in technical cooperation matter, I placed,
"Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturing and Exporting Industry has got very strong backward linkage, that is about 80%-90% within the country, that means, now it is mature enough to pave on Retail Branding, like H&M, Zara, GAP or any other world reputed brands are doing. And you might know, that, a Polo T-Shirt, which we sale at US$ 1.60-2.20 to these brands, they sale it there at US$ 20-25 at their branded stores.
So the main thing- where we have tremendous lacking, is that, we do not have technology to produce completely unique designs. We might know, Turkey have got some very popular brands, which can develop 15-30 unique designs daily.
We are willing to have that expertise and technology, that could be possible under the Task Force on Textile, that got formed on November, 2008 and in it's last meeting held on 26-27 January, 2015 at the occasion of the 4th Ministerial Meeting on Industrial Cooperation, expressed that, cooperation will be accomplished to provide with required training programs, transferring experts, technology and personnel for R&D projects, plus easing and developing the textile trade further among D-8 parties.
Surely, we can grasp these opportunities, mainly in part of human capacity building and technology transfer, once we start playing proactive role in D-8 forum, and never deny to be member of any of the initiatives taken."
Nevertheless, it felt awesome, after the meeting, when Mr. AFM Gousal Azam Sarker, Director General, MoFA, and, Mr. ATM Abdur Rouf Mondol, Director, MoFA appreciated me specially for the opinions given there.
The day became happy one, quite after a long time, when I met Mr. Tanvir Ahmad Jummon vai, Assistant Secretary, MoFA at his office room, like always his generosity was a matter of fascination to me.
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