Photo : BSS

DHAKA, March 10, 2025 (BSS) – Economic Relations Division (ERD) today said the businesses should prepare themselves to brace the impact Bangladesh’s LDC graduation and devise ways to overcome the trade benefit losses to be caused by the elevation.

“We’ve to build capacity at all levels to deal with the impact of the loss of trade benefits in the post-LDC era,” ERD Secretary M Shahriar Kader Siddiky said in an interaction with business leaders and international business experts here.

The ERD secretary said as far as the government was concerned it would form a committee incorporating trade organization representatives to determine private sector needs and challenges to find solutions to emerging problems.

Siddiky’s comments came at a focus group discussion titled “Implementation of the STS for Smooth Transition from LDC Status” jointly organized by Support to Sustainable Graduation Project (SSGP), Economic Relations Division (ERD) and Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI) at the DCCI Auditorium in the capital.

Shahriar agreed that the national economy was exposed to challenges even ahead of the LDC graduation which the country was overcoming gradually but the the position of current account and financial account improved significantly by now.

To address the statistics/data gap, the UNSCAP and the European Union (EU) will help the government to implement best practices in the world in Bangladesh’s own context while South Korea also agreed to help Bangladesh to implement digitalization at all levels of the government services.

Speaking as the special guest, Commerce Secretary Mahbubur Rahman said there was a lack of proper planning and implementation from the beginning to meet the challenges of LDC graduation.

He said private sector opinions now deserved more attention for a sustainable LDC graduation process and called upon the entrepreneurs to focus on product diversification in the RMG sector as well as to focus on its promising packaging area.

DCCI president Taskeen Ahmed presented the keynote paper from the private sector perspective, where he requested for deferring the LDC graduation of Bangladesh for at least 2 to 3 years considering the prevailing global and local economic challenges.

He listed as existing challenges energy shortage in industrial sector, high inflation and high duty on imports, high interest rates, procedural complexities in obtaining bank credits and lack of access to credit to the private sector.

The LDC graduation time, he said, coincides with a period when Bangladesh’s economy was still going through various challenges.

Ahmed said the government formulated a STS to strategies the graduation preparedness incorporating key elements like implementation framework, strong leadership and commitment, partnership and solidarity, policy integration, financing the strategy and monitoring and evaluation.

He recommended development of a roadmap to stabilize the economy, create a real-time monitoring and evaluation platform, signing of economic partnership agreement or FTA with key partners and aligning trade, industrial and investment policies to make STS more effective and competitive.

ERD Additional Secretary & Project Director, Support to Sustainable Graduation Project (SSGP) AH M. Jahangir gave the welcome address saying the private sector would have to face most of the challenges of the LDC graduation.

He said the situation requires stakeholders coordinated activities with private sector supports to implement the STS formulated to address the overall challenges of LDC transition.

Some 73 percent of the country’s total export enjoys duty-free benefits, which Bangladesh would not be able to get in the post-LDC period, Dr. Mostafa Abid Khan, Component Manager of SSGP of ERD and former tariff commission member said.

He said lack of diversification in export products is also one of the biggest challenges for the country and it needs to be addressed soon.

In addition to expanding local and foreign investment, he stressed on skills development of human resources, institutional capacity building and increasing public-private sector coordination.

Dr. Md. Rezaul Bashar Siddique, Component Manager (Former Additional Secretary), SSGP, ERD, Rizwan Rahman, former president of DCCI, Manwar Hossain, Chairman of Anwar Group of Industries, BKMEA President Mohammad Hatem, Asif Ashraf, former Director of BGMEA, Md. Mahbubur Rahman Patwary, Managing Director of Sonali Ash Industries Limited spoke, among others, at the event.

DCCI Senior Vice President Razeev H Chowdhury, Vice President Md. Salem Sulaiman, and members of the Board of Directors and representatives from the public and private sectors attended the event.