For the third year in a row, the US has kept Bangladesh out of its Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) list of beneficiary countries for trade privileges, on grounds of poor labour rights.
Ten more countries viz Ecuador, Fiji, Georgia, Indonesia, Iraq, Niger, the Philippines, Thailand, Ukraine and Uzbekistan also feature in this list, mostly on account of poor labour rights record.
Incidentally, the United States Trade Representative (USTR), the chief trade negotiation body for the US government updated the list of beneficiaries for the GSP scheme only last month.
Bangladesh was suspended from the GSP scheme in April 2013 on grounds of shortcomings in workplace safety and poor labour rights in the garment sector after the infamous Rana Plaza fire tragedy in which more than 1,000 people expired. The Obama administration then provided Bangladesh a 16-point action plan to win back the trade benefits.
Dhaka has already handed in its progress report on the action plan but it fell short of the USTR's expectations.
Before the suspension of GSP, Bangladesh used to annually export nearly $36 million worth of products to the US under the 40-year-old GSP scheme under which the US allows duty-free import of nearly 5,000 products from 122 beneficiary countries and territories.
