Mr. Chairman,
Hon'ble Commerce Minister,
Hon'ble Adviser for Commerce,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

I would like to thank BGMEA and South-Asia Enterprise Development Facility (SEDF) for organising this extremely important conference.

I am delighted to see participants from neighbouring countries and I wish them all a very warm welcome. This is the time we must build up a wide and strong coalition.

Our RMG sector has demonstrated its resilience and survived the post-MFA doomsday. But the industry is faced with declining price due to unequal competition. An immediate intervention is therefore vital.

In this context, the US Trade-Bill 2005 assumes crucial importance. I should like to pay special tribute to Senators Gordon H. Smith, Dianne G.B. Feinstein, Max. S. Baucus and Richard J. Santorum for introducing the Bill on January 26. I am also grateful to Congressmen Jim Kolbe, and Joseph Crowley for tabling the Bill at the House of Representatives on February 17.

A Bill, as we all know, is only a draft text that has been tabled. We have to follow the developments closely until it is voted and made into an Act of Law.

Every effort must be made on our part to secure the support and sympathy among the US lawmakers in favour of the Bill that would be critical for market access for the products of the LDCs in particular ready-made garments and textiles.

While we remain engaged at the inter-governmental or official processes, it is essential that the civil society, the think-tanks and the private sector also mobilize their efforts. In this context, the recent visit of the BGMEA team led by Professor Muhammad Yunus has been an extremely important initiative. BGMEA President Mr. Anisul Huq will certainly tell us more about the outcome of the visit.

The press and the media in our part of the world need to play a more active role. They could highlight the impact on our economy and our societies of globalization in general and of the MFA phase-out in particular. I am sure you have seen the 1 June 2005 article in the International Herald Tribune pleading for textile relief for Bangladesh. Our own press and media should do better.

During my recent visit, although a private one, I met Secretary of State Condolezza Rice and requested duty free access of Bangladesh apparels. I also met senior Congressmen and Senators including Senator Kennedy, Congressmen Joseph Crowley, Peter King and Gary Ackerman. Foremost among the issues I raised was obviously the question of duty free access of our products, in particular RMG to the US market. I received assurances of their support and sympathy.

We need also to keep in mind the US position and of the interested lobbies against the Bill. The us national textile lobby is treating this as a "toxic issue." Resistance from the labour lobby also counts heavily against the Bill.

In addition, officially, the US side has been advising, in response to our pleading for 'market access', that we 'diversify' our export basket and not depend so heavily on one product or a range of product. These bring on the table a different set of issues that go by the name of "governance" or "systemic issues." We need to meet them somewhere along the way.

Mr. Chairman,

Against these arguments we need to launch our own offensive. Certain facts and figures need to be highlighted and placed before policymakers for consideration:

- US average effective tariff levels came down from 3.4% in 1991 to 1.6% in 2001. But tariff rates on apparels and shoes were at very high levels of 11.4% compared to 0.9% for the rest of the products.

- Tariffs on woven-wear men's and boy's coats (17.8%), men's knitted shirt (22.2%) and some categories of woven trousers (16.6%) are particularly high.

- Although clothing and shoe account for only 6.7% of US annual imports, they account for 47% of total tariffs collected by the USA.

- The current average tariff rates on apparels in the EU is also as high as 12.4%.

In the US market, Norway pays 0.5%, Singapore pays 0.6%, Saudi Arabia pays 0.5% tariff. The effective tariff rate on Bangladesh's exports to USA is 14.1%, compared to a mere 1.1% on exports from France.

It is an irony that Bangladesh has to pay a much higher tariff rates on her exportables as against those from the developed countries. With an export of $2.40 billion to the US market, Bangladesh products are charged a $331 million tariff. By contrast, French exports are charged only $330 million for a $24.2 billion exports. Bangladesh thus pays more than 13 times than France.

It goes without saying that such high tariff rates undermines LDCs competitive strength in the US market and is discriminatory.

Mr. Chairman,

While the US market is of pre-eminent concern, our efforts must also focus on the world trade regime. At the level of the government, we are investing all possible diplomatic efforts at relevant international forums.

Bangladesh has been one of the key players in shaping the outcome of the second south summit held in Doha from 15-16 June. The Doha Declaration and Doha Plan of Action reflect the development challenges facing the South. We succeeded in reflecting the position of the LDCs with regard to ODA and on multilateral trade issues. I would invite your specific attention to paragraph 15 of the Doha Declaration and paragraphs 8, 9, 88, 89 and 90 of the Doha Plan of Action.

At the Ministerial meeting of the G77 & China in Doha on 13 June, I put emphasis on three issues.

First, I demanded that developed countries, and more advanced developing countries, should immediately give duty-free access to all products exported from LDCs along with rules of origin that are realistic.

Secondly, I insisted that non-tariff barriers (NTBs) to the import of LDC products must be reduced and gradually eliminated. LDCs must be assisted in developing their standards to meet the genuine concerns that importing countries may have.

Thirdly, I stressed that the OECD countries, and developing countries that are so able, should open up their markets to temporary, less skilled workers under Mode 4 of the GATS from the LDCs. Opening up just 3 percent of the OECD labour force would yield benefits of US$ 158-200 billion annually. This would be beneficial for the developed and developing countries.

Mr. Chairman,

Bangladesh has been drawing attention of the WTO members to the special vulnerability of the least developed countries and the special structural difficulties they face. Our position at the relevant forums could be summarized in ten points:

i) Binding commitment on duty-free and quota-free market access for all products from least-developed countries. This should be on a secure, long-term and predictable basis with realistic, flexible and simplified rules of origin to match the industrial capacity of LDCs in order to raise their market share in world trade;

ii) A binding commitment from our trading partners guaranteeing a substantive and concrete increase in the market share of the LDCs in the world trade;

iii) Resolving all implementation-related issues and concerns, and all S&D proposals with a view to strengthening them and making them precise, effective and operational. This has been mandated by the Doha Declaration; and substantially expanding and binding special and differential treatment provisions to reverse the continued marginalization of LDCs;

iv) Free access to developed country markets for temporary movement of natural persons, particularly unskilled and semi-skilled service providers, under Mode 4 by inter alia recognizing professional qualification, simplifying visa procedures and without asking for Economic Needs Test;

v) Allowing LDCs flexibility in undertaking commitments and obligations consistent with their individual development, financial and trade needs, or their administrative and institutional capabilities;

vi) Substantial increase in technical and financial assistance to LDCs for the development, strengthening and diversification of their production and export base, as well as for institution and capacity building;

vii) The strengthening of the Integrated Framework, with enhanced funding, to meet the needs of the LDCs, particularly for overcoming their supply side constraints and for the diversification of their export base along with simplification of procedures to improve access to financial resources;

viii) The exemption of least developed country exports from antidumping, countervailing and safeguard measures;

ix) Devising appropriate compensatory and other mechanisms to fully address the erosion of preference margins due to lowering of MFN tariffs;

x) Developing mechanism to help LDCs address the inherent problems of very small size, land-locked state, remoteness and extreme vulnerability;
I hope we can forge a coalition of all LDCs and stakeholders along these basic provisions.

Your Conference will consider many of these issues. I look forward to a very fruitful outcome from your deliberations.

I thank you.

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