The New Nation - Internet Edition

BSS, Dhaka

Foreign Secretary Touhid Hossain has called upon the developed countries to provide duty-free and quota-free market access for all products to all Least Developed Countries (LDCs) without any restrictions.

He said this while making a statement on Friday on behalf of the 50 LDCs at the debate of the Economic and Financial Committee of the United Nations General Assembly on international trade and development in New York, according to a message received here yesterday. Touhid added that LDCs were increasingly marginalized in the North-South trade as well as in the South-South trade. He urged the developing countries to open their markets for LDCs to reduce the existing trade gaps. The foreign secretary expressed his concern that despite significant efforts, the share of the 50 least developed countries in the global merchandise trade has reached only to 0.83 percent in 2006.

He reminded that export share of the LDCs was 2.5 percent in 1960. He said that the current trading system was not in favour of the LDCs. "This is, apart from other reasons, because of a wide array of harmful subsidies, non-tariff restriction, fluctuation in the terms of trade, artificial standards imposed by industrialized countries," he added.

Touhid also underscored the importance of reversing these restrictions.

The foreign secretary said that service sector had huge potentials in the international trade, but the least developed countries could not reap the benefits. He called upon the developed countries to liberalize their markets for all categories of service providers of the LDCs, in particular under mode 4 of GATS.