The New Nation - Internet Edition

Chittagong Correspondent

Speakers here at the inaugural session of a workshop yesterday emphasized the need for better understanding and applications of the uniform customs and practices (UCP) in paying the international trade bills.

They said that easy, quick and transparent transactions particularly in the international trade had long been considered as the basic precondition of dynamic and favorable trade environment apart from pacing up the global economy and in the region as well.

They were addressing the opening session of the daylong workshop on "International Trade payment Practices" at a city hotel. International Chamber of Commerce - Bangladesh (ICCB) and the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) jointly hosted the workshop.

President of the International Chamber of Commerce - Bangladesh (ICCB) Mahbubur Rahman chaired the session while First Vice-President of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) MA Salam and expert on international trade billing Vincent O Brien among others addressed it.

Mahbubur Rahman said that documentary credit method had become most popular way of addressing the international trade bills over the decades, and currently its newest version - UCP 600 - just had been brought into operation.

The UCP provides a common set of rules for the institutional lenders and the financial companies all over the world what are open and free for subscription to any financial organization wants to benefit from it.

Referring to the growing dependence on the international documentary credit mainly in south and Southeast Asian and Middle-eastern countries Mahbubur Rahman said that international standard banking practices (ISBP) would be a great help in cutting the rates of rejections of payment.

He dubbed the ISBP as the driving force of the UCP and observed that lesser chances were there for hazard free international trading without fair knowledge on international standard banking practices.

First Vice President of the BGMEA MA Salam thanked the ICC and the GTZ for hosting the workshop and hoped that the workshop would help the local bankers and the exporters better understand the ISBP. He urged the organizers to undertake such events in the future for capacity building of the local professionals.

More than 80 officials from different public and private financial institutions, readymade garment manufacturing firms and the BGMEA joined the daylong workshop.