Bangladesh will continue to enjoy duty-free and quota-free access to the European market under the Everything But Arms (EBA) regime. Bangladesh earned $18.68 billion from its exports to EU in 2015-16, which was 54.57 per cent of the total receipts for the fiscal year. Of the $18.68 billion, $17.15 billion was from apparel shipments alone. Once Bangladesh becomes a middle-income country, it can hope for GSP Plus.

Access to GSP Plus isn’t an automatic process. But in practical terms GSP Plus is almost the same as GSP under EBA. There will be little difference in terms of access to the EU market.

Bangladesh will not lose the GSP benefit under EBA the day it becomes a middle-income country but will enjoy the duty-free and quota-free benefit for three years during the transition period.

Meanwhile the country is aligning itself with international labor conventions like establishing trade unions and allowing trade unions to operate freely and respecting international conventions on human and labor rights and environmental protection and good governance.

Also, the country must not have formulated reservations which are prohibited by these conventions and the monitoring bodies under those conventions must not have identified any serious failure to effectively implement them.