During her recent visit to Turkey, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina initiated plans to make Bangladesh the hub of all economic activities in South Asia and South-East Asia regions encompassing China and India. In her meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, she emphasized both on regional issues as well as bilateral relations, focusing on growth of trade ties, increasing the previously set $ 1 billion goal for 2015 to $ 3 billion.
Though the talks were very encouraging for bilateral trade, Turkey politely refused to lift the 17% safeguard duty imposed on readymade garments from Bangladesh, originally imposed in September 2011 to save the domestic manufacturers of Turkey, from exports of countries like India, China, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
The consequences of this development according to the experts could be a fall of more than 50% in Bangladesh’s export earnings to Turkey by $ 200 million per annum. However, the signing of the investment cooperation agreement during the visit will facilitate Turkish investments in Bangladesh since it is particularly interested in relocating its labour-intensive industries such as textile and garment.
The trade volume between the two countries has substantially increased over the past few years, especially during Erdoğan’s regime. It was only $ 47 million in 2002; it reached $ 658 million by 2009 and is $ 1 billion at present. “The increasing trend in trade volume proves that Turkey and Bangladesh can achieve that target,” said Erdoğan with confidence. The prospect of enhancing the volume of trade between Bangladesh and Turkey is even greater particularly after the two countries sign FTA as agreed during the visit making the figure of $ 3 billion very attainable.
Hasina visit sees 7 agreements signed
Besides signing a package for Developing-8 (D-8), Bangladesh and Turkey signed seven agreements and memorandums of understanding (MoUs) in all to boost bilateral trade and investment. D-8 is an arrangement for development cooperation among Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey that enhances dialogue on economic cooperation between its Muslim developing country members.
The details of the accords include: Agreement on reciprocal promotion and protection of investment; agreement concerning mutual abolition of visas for holders of diplomatic, service/official, and special passports; agreement on customs cooperation; MoUs on scientific and technical cooperation in the field of agriculture, and cultural, scientific and educational exchange programme.
