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Bangladesh’s Industries Minister urges LDCs to be united

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February 1, 2001 

Dhaka--(UNB) – Industries Minister Tofail Ahmed has urged the least developed countries (LDCs) to be united to reap maximum benefits from the new round of WTO meeting and other future conferences of UNOs for the LDCs.

“We should be united although we have some individual issues,” he said while addressing the concluding session of a two-day symposium on “The Role of Private Sector in Enhancing Productive Capacity in LDCs” in Oslo Tuesday.

He told the session that developed and even the developing countries with many odds are united on common interests and thus they were reaping maximum benefits from globalisation as well as trade liberalisation, according to a message received here today.

“The 4th WTO ministerial meeting is expected to be held in November next for allowing the WTO members to enter the new round of negotiation that only means more tariff cut, link non-trade issues like labour and environment standards,” the minister said.

Tofail said foreign investors were coming to Bangladesh mainly to invest in the energy, telecommunications, cement sectors as these products have both domestic and export demands. “But they are less interested to invest in the manufacturing sector as we have no established export market.”

Urging the international financial organisations, including WB, IMF and ADB, to come up to enhance productivity in the least developed countries, he called on the UNCTAD to include the concerns of LDCs in the report to be submitted in the third UN conference of LDCs in Brussels in May next.

UNCTAD Secretary General Rubens Ricopero and Norwegian Minister for International Development Anne Kristin Sydnes in their concluding deliberations assured Tofail to include all concerns of LDCs.

They recognised that LDCs economies were further being marginalised due to trade liberalisation and globalisation as most of the developed and developing countries did not fulfil their commitments they made in the UR agreement.

Reiterating his demand of the Seattle conference, the minister said WTO would have to assess before the new round what we have got from the UR agreement and what we were supposed to get as per the commitments of the developed and developing countries.

The LDCs ministers, who attended the symposium, were quick to support his demand.

Focusing on the achievements made by Bangladesh in recent years, the minister said a vibrant, efficient and dedicated private sector has been developed in the country over the years.

“They (private entrepreneurs) are setting up forward and backward linkage industries in the prospective textile sector. But they cannot expand their enterprises due to shortage of long-term loans,” he said.

The minister leaves for Portugal yesterday(Wednesday) to attend the two-day high-profile interregional roundtable on intellectual property right for the LDCs in Lisbon, beginning today (Thursday).

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