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The ambassador of European Commission (EC) yesterday said the EC is ready to relax the rules of origin and reduce derogation of garments exported from Bangladesh, if the government makes a proper request for that.

Speaking at a national dialogue organised by the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) in the city, Head of EC Delegation in Bangladesh Esko Kentrschynskyj also underscored the need for diversifying export items, which Bangladesh's export basket badly lacks.

Kentrschynskyj's remarks came in response to speakers' observation that Bangladesh's exports to Europe and Japan would increase manifold if the rules of origin were relaxed and trade barriers removed.

The speakers also detailed a number of reasons including non-tariff barriers and lack of capacity building and policy support from the government, for which the country cannot fully utilise various trade facilities provided by the developed economies.

The EC envoy in this regard mentioned an Euro 10 million technical support provided by the European Union to Bangladesh to improve quality of its products.

Commerce Minister Altaf Hossain Choudhury was the chief guest of the dialogue held at CIRDAP auditorium and presided over by CPD Chairman Rehman Sobhan.

The commerce minister emphasised product diversification in agriculture and setting up more agro-based industries to increase the export volume and diversify the export basket. He said an increased export of agricultural products would have a direct impact on poverty alleviation.

Choudhury said a high-powered committee would be formed with representation of all stakeholders to identify areas and ways to increase exports to Europe and Japan.

Ambassador of Japan Motsihoro Horguchi said the Japanese consumers are very sensitive to product quality. For example, he said, "They are ready to pay much higher prices for safe food."

In his keynote paper, Professor Mostafizur Rahman pointed out that Bangladesh fails to make proper utilisation of the EU offer for duty- and quota-free access of goods under its Everything But Arms programme.

On behalf of the CPD, Rahman tabled a 21-point suggestion at the dialogue for boosting the country's export volume to European market, the largest destination of Bangladeshi products.

The suggestions include for providing credit-, interest- and tax-support and other facilities to promote export oriented agro-processing industries, and duty- and VAT-waiver to imported equipment for horticultural product preservation.

Recommendations were also there for establishing a national body of exporters, reducing freight charge for regional exports, providing bonded warehouse facilities to agro-based industries, and strengthening testing capacities of laboratories.

The set of suggestions was prepared in consultation with all stakeholders, he told the dialogue.

Former state minister Fakhrul Islam Munshi, lawmakers Kazi Zafarullah and GM Kader, former secretary Faruque Sobhan, BGMEA President Annisul Huq, Bangladesh Frozen Food Exporters' Association President Qazi Monirul Huque, Bangladesh Chamber of Industries President A K Azad, Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry Rouf Chowdhury, former Planning Commission member Prof Momtazuddin Ahmed, Action Aid Bangladesh Country Representative Nasreen Haque and BRAC Dairy General Manager Syed Rezaul Karim also took part in the discussions.

Ananya Raihan of CPD presented another paper, prepared in collaboration with Prof Debapriya Bhattacharya and Prof Mostafizur Rahman, on the new Japanese generalised system of preference (GSP) for the least developed countries (LDCs) and Bangladesh's export opportunities.

The paper maintained, due to many supply-side constraints, the preferential market access often remains only in paper. "The system of standard compliance is very complicated and costly, which is often not possible for the LDCs to afford," it said.

Raihan too presented another set of suggestions, but this was for overcoming the supply-side constraints. The suggestions include establishing institutes of food technology research, packaging technology and product specification, building capacity of the entrepreneurs, and organising regular export fairs in Europe and Japan.