Sri Lanka urged to cut tax on Bangladeshi products

Commerce minister Tofail Ahmed today requested Sri Lanka to cut high duty on Bangladeshi products in its market.

“Bangladeshi pharmaceuticals, paper, cement, MS rod and agriculture products have good demand in Sri Lankan market, but Bangladesh can't export those due to high tariff,” he said.

The minister passed the remarks during a bilateral meeting with Sri Lankan industries and commerce minister Rishad Bathiudeen in Colombo.

He also put emphasis on calling a joint working group meeting as soon as possible to eliminate existing barriers to keep running the trade between Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Referring to Bangladesh's decision of signing FTA with Sri Lanka, Tofail Ahmed said: “Bangladesh is working with this issue with high priority and we are expecting that related works will be completed by 2018.”

The commerce minister arrived in Colombo today from Bangkok to join “Second Indian Ocean Conference-2017” which is scheduled to be held August 31-September 2 with the participation of representatives from 29 countries.

Before moving to Colombo, Tofail Ahmed met with Thailand commerce minister Apiradi Tantraporn. During the meeting both the leaders agreed on implementation of the decisions taken during the joint trade committee meeting on August 9-10 in Dhaka.

Dhaka and Bangkok also decided to form a joint team to conduct feasibility for singing FTA.

The commerce minister went to Thailand on August 28 to sign paperless trade agreement at UNESCAP headquarters.

Source: BSS