The New Nation - Internet Edition

UNB, Dhaka

A roundtable here on Wednesday called upon donors to provide aid for trade-related infrastructure projects like power plants and road construction as traditional donors are likely to incrementally increase their aid for trade.

It also urged the government to immediately constitute a national committee on aid for trade to work on getting a better share of the aid-cake as well as adopt a foreign aid policy statement in consistent with the new PRSP to make donors clear about the priority areas of aid.

"Put up big-billing projects under the Aid for Trade projects," Bangladesh's permanent representative in Geneva Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya told the roundtable at Sonargaon Hotel.

Addressing as guest speaker, he said the second Dhaka-Chittagong highway could be one of the classic examples of Aid for Trade projects.

UNDP Bangladesh organised the roundtable titled "Real Trade and Phantom Aid: Bangladesh in Global Context" with UNDP country director Manoj Basnyat as moderator.

Former Finance Adviser Dr Akbar Ali Khan, Bangladesh Enterprise Institute (BEI) president Farooq Sobhan, economists, academics, trade experts and researchers took part in the discussion.

Dr Bhattachariya floated a new idea to mutually reinforce exports and ODA (Official Development Assistance) as a strategy to accelerate the country's economic growth.

Though the idea drew widespread skepticism from the participants, he argued that the trade and aid did not go hand in hand in the past but that does not mean that it will not go in the future.

Dr Akbar Ali Khan, also a former finance secretary, termed the idea as a "terrible recommendation" as he posed a question whether the donors will be willing to provide aid for infrastructure like power plants and road construction.

He told the Ambassador to tell the donors "please give us aid to develop infrastructure as we cannot export and import without the infrastructure."

Dr Debapriya pointed out that Bangladesh greatly improved its external sector performance by moving away from aid dependence through greater exports of goods and services.

He said the country has not received incremental aid flow while there has been an aggregate increase in global aid flow. On the other hand, LDCs in varying degrees have increased its share in global exports, albeit marginally, with Bangladesh's share in LDC exports in manufacturers falling.

"As both aid and trade can have independent positive influence on economic growth, Bangladesh will have to look for synergy of both the stimuli which is currently not addressed adequately," he added.

He said areas under trade facilitation and aid for trade need to be identified for accruing maximum benefit and becoming internationally competitive.

The Bangladesh Envoy to Geneva also pointed out that the next 3-4 months would be very crucial for Bangladesh in negotiating market access issues, including the US bill titled "The New Partnership Development Act of 2007" (NPDA) to be placed in the US Congress.

"We'll have to wait for 1-2 years unless we can negotiate the issues in next 3-4 months," he said, adding that the US authorities would work for their domestic trade protection ahead of their November elections.

Replying to a question whether it is possible to get the NPDA bill passed, He said: "Our main task is to put our best efforts… but the passage of the bill depends on the USA."