The Impact of the World Trade Organization (WTO) on Bangladesh:

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization whose main function
is to regulate international trade. WTO officially started its operations on 1 January, 1995,
replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The WTO deals with regulation
of trade between participating countries by providing a framework for negotiating trade
agreements and a dispute resolution process aimed at enforcing participants' adherence to WTO
agreements. Bangladesh has been a member of GATT since 16 December, 1972 and has retained
its membership since WTO's inception.
In the past, when Bangladesh won its independence, the country was categorized as a Least
Developed Country (LDC). WTO focused its attention on the development of Bangladesh so that
the country can come out of this category. WTO provided many facilities to Bangladesh for the
sole purpose of development and the end result is that at present Bangladesh's economy has
greatly developed compared to what it was in the past. Some of these facilities are:
1. WTO focused on increasing the capacity building in LDCs along with greater market access.
2. Bangladesh has a duty free access in the US market for 97% of its products which is the result
of WTO negotiations.
3. The 20-20-20 Formula, proposed by WTOs Pascal Lamy, focused on LDCs and developing
countries. According to the formula:

US was asked to limit farm subsidies to US$20 billion.

EU was asked to accept the G-20 formula of cutting its farm subsidies to 54%.
Developing countries such as India were asked to tap their industrial tariff at 20%.

Besides, the Philippines has come up with a proposal to add a fourth 20% (20-20-20-20) with
the new percentage indicating the exemption of agricultural tariff lines as Special Products. The
end result was a reduction in tariff on agricultural products from Bangladesh.
As an LDC, Bangladesh has been exempted from making all sorts of reduction commitments
(such as reduction of tariffs, domestic supports, etc). Bangladesh has also no obligation to open
up any mode or sectors relating to trade in services in this round. As a result, Bangladesh has
very little defensive interest in this round of negotiations.
However, Bangladesh has many offensive interests for which Bangladesh has been negotiating
hard. Particularly following issues are important for Bangladesh:

Duty-free & quota-free (DFQF) market access

Preference erosion
Services negotiations
Trade Facilitation

Another important facility enjoyed by Bangladesh is the Aid-for-Trade(A4T) Package. The

purpose of this package is to facilitate the development of LDCs economies so that they may
become capable of entering the global trade market. A task force was formed for overseeing the
A4T Package and their job was to identify Bangladeshs trade related supply-side constraints and
collaborate with the WTO and donor agencies to ensure a dedicated proportion of the proposed
A4T package for Bangladesh according to the size of the country's economy.
WTO has opened the door for Bangladesh in the developed trade market. If the country can
utilize the facilities, further economic development is not far away for the country.