{"id":120479,"date":"2021-11-20T17:32:38","date_gmt":"2021-11-21T00:32:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=120479"},"modified":"2021-11-20T17:33:20","modified_gmt":"2021-11-21T00:33:20","slug":"sri-lanka-and-bangladesh-should-sign-pta-as-soon-as-possible-for-ensuring-mutual-benefits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/11\/20\/sri-lanka-and-bangladesh-should-sign-pta-as-soon-as-possible-for-ensuring-mutual-benefits\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka And Bangladesh Should Sign PTA As Soon As Possible For Ensuring Mutual Benefits."},"content":{"rendered":"

MD Pathik Hasan<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Sri\nLanka and Bangladesh should set up a Free Trade Agreement as soon as possible\nfor ensuring their own business interest.  Sri Lanka and Bangladesh as\nSouth Asian Countries share some common economic platforms. Sri Lanka and\nBangladesh were parties to the SAARC Preferential Trading Arrangement (SAPTA),\nSouth Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA). The two countries were also parties of\nGlobal System of Trade Preference (GSTP), Asia \u2013 Pacific Trade Agreement\n(APTA), and Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic\nCooperation (BIMSTEC).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\nSri Lanka and Bangladesh both need a bilateral Preferential Trade Agreement\n(PTA) to boost up trade and connectivity for ensuring greater mutual interest.\nThis will be big bilateral progress towards trade and investment between the\ncountries<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bangladesh\nhas always expressed its keen interest to sign a free trade agreement (FTA)\nwith Colombo to exploit the huge potential of bilateral trade between\nBangladesh and Sri Lanka. If signing the FTA takes a long time, the two nations\nwill sign a preferential trade agreement (PTA). The PTA will begin with a\nshortlist of products that could open up opportunities for expanded trade,\ninvestment, and tourism in the future. But at first Bangladesh and Sri Lanka\ncan sign a preferential trade agreement initially to tap the untapped\npotentials. Bangladesh and Bhutan signed a PTA on December 06, 2020. Now Bhutan\nand Bangladesh both are benefitting from the PTA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ntwo Countries should emphasize utilizing the huge trade potential between the\ntwo countries by signing a bilateral trade agreement. Both parties can increase\ncooperation in various fields including pharmaceuticals, IT, agriculture,\nmaritime security, and disaster management. Bangladesh has already expressed\nkeen interest to provide training to Sri Lankan nationals in the field of paddy\nproduction, climate adaption, disaster management, and information technology\nand urged Colombo to extend training programs for Bangladeshis on marine\nfisheries and nursing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to 2019 data of the Export\nPromotion Bureau, the annual trade volume between Bangladesh and Sri Lanka is\nabout $13 crore. Of this, Sri Lanka exports goods worth $9.86 crore while\nBangladesh’s exports amount to about $3.7 crore. This trade volume could be\nincreased easily if Sri Lanka and Bangladesh sign a trade agreement as soon as\npossible. Sri Lankan investors can invest more in our special economic zones,\nindustrial parks, and high-tech parks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bangladesh can share with Sri Lanka its experiences in\nagriculture, particularly in rice farming and freshwater fisheries, its\nexperiences in emergency response, disaster management, climate adaptation, and\nmitigation. Bangladesh can obtain technical know-how from Sri Lanka in coastal,\naquaculture, marine culture, and deep-sea fishing. In the education sector,\nboth countries should have more institutionalized cooperation in capacity\nbuilding, vocational training, and skill development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the case of the health sector,\nBangladesh can put emphasis on core training of Bangladeshi nurses and other\nhealth professionals in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka may benefit immensely by importing\nour world-class pharmaceutical products and medical devices in greater\nquantities. Basically, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka both would benefit from sharing\nexperiences in the fields of agriculture, health, and education for mutual\nbenefit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bangladesh is moving forward on the\npath of rapid development. Sri Lanka should sign a trade agreement for ensuring\nits maximum business interest. Bangladesh produces garments, pharmaceuticals,\ncement, paper, electrical items, and jute goods, which are high in demand in\nSri Lanka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bangladesh and Sri Lanka should\nidentify potential investment sectors, including the areas of information\ntechnology, agriculture, health, education, tourism, and services to tap the\nuntapped potentials. The investors of the two countries should come forward to\nexchange experiences of the development trend in the respective countries in\nthe days to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FTA negotiations with Bangladesh\nhave been in the works since 2013 and signing an FTA would mean successful\ncompletion of this discussion. It is expected that the FTA will enable both\ncountries to overcome tariff and non-tariff barriers that exist and therefore\nhamper trade between the two countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Signing\nPTAs and FTAs (free trade agreements) would help both Bangladesh and Sri Lanka\nto address the challenges in the trade sectors. The preferential trade deals\nwill help boost exports significantly. Bangladesh also needs to sign several\nPTAs and FTAs before (Bangladesh’s) graduation, to reap benefits of the\nleast-developed country category. Earlier, Both Bangladesh and Sri Lanka\nalready agreed to sign the deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\n2017, both the countries had finished the required preparations to sign a free\ntrade agreement (FTA) – but the initiatives did not see the light of the day\ndue to internal issues. Currently, both should give priority to PTAs. To some\nextent, the FTA deal is very difficult. Some issues, including revenue losses,\nhave been involved with FTAs as all products of both the countries under FTAs\nenjoy duty-free facilities. Bangladesh and Sri Lank signed the 06 Memorandum of\nUnderstandings (MoUs) to increase bilateral cooperation between the two South\nAsian countries. Now it is high for Sri Lanka and Bangladesh should sign a PTA\nas soon as possible to tap the potentials. Then Bangladesh and Sri Lanka can\nmove the path of FTA. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka is in an advantageous position\nin the value-added apparel industry, shipping lines and deep-sea port,\nfinancial services, ICT, and skilled technical people in different sectors. On\nthe other hand, Bangladesh enjoys advantages in the apparel sector, skilled\nworkforce in the garment sector, agricultural products, processed foods, and\nmigrant workers. Bangladesh would be immensely benefited if the FTA is signed\nwith Sri Lanka, as a portion of its exports and imports of goods are done\nthrough the Colombo ports. Sri Lanka also would benefit from signing the trade\nagreement. Although there are some complexities in the case of signing the\n\u2018FTA\u2019 deal, an effective diplomatic negotiation through dialogue can remove the\nobstacles. Thus, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh should sign PTA as soon as possible\nto tap the untapped potential to move forward the issue of \u2018FTA\u2019. Sri Lanka and\nBangladesh could benefit from signing PTA. <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MD Pathik Hasan Sri Lanka and Bangladesh should set up a Free Trade Agreement as soon as possible for ensuring their own business interest.  Sri Lanka and Bangladesh as South Asian Countries share some common economic platforms. Sri Lanka and Bangladesh were parties to the SAARC Preferential Trading Arrangement (SAPTA), South Asian Free Trade Area […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-120479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-md-pathik-hasan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120479\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}