Lesson from Hong Kong

The USA played the pivotal role in determining the extent of the excluded list of items that wouldn't be entitled to duty- and quota-free access from the LDCs to the world market. Ninety-seven percent of LDC products have been given duty- and quota-free market access, excluding textiles that account for forty-two percent of Bangladesh's total exports.

The US for quite sometime past had been responding negatively to our much-vaunted overtures from time to time for grant of duty- and quota-free access to our garment products. Our negotiators were well aware of the fact and yet they did not try to persuade the US from taking such a hard position when the chips were down in Hong Kong. It was also foolish for them to have done the cliff-hanging in hoping that their designated lobby in US Congress will make a difference for Bangladesh.

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The grant of access to 97 percent of LDC products was squarely responsive to the requirements of an overwhelming number of third world countries. They were left with no stake in Bangladesh's apparel export anxieties. To make matters worse, certain textile importing developing countries fell foul with Bangladesh -- the role of Pakistan and partly that of Sri Lanka was unhelpful to Bangladesh's cause.

We have descended from a position of LDC leadership to a position where we are left to fend for ourselves. Bangladesh's voice used to be readily and intently heard at every WTO round of negotiation. This time an eerie silence enveloped the Bangladeshi ambience in and around the conference venue.

Surprisingly, we could not, or perhaps did not even try to, gain entry to the green room where informal, trouble-shooting discussions take place helping to thrash out last-minute differences through give and take, fence-mending and alignment and realignment of interests and concerns. While Senegal and Zambia could access the green room why couldn't Bangladesh do it, we wonder.

The reasons why the Bangladesh delegation drew a blank are: it didn't do any homework, had no analysis to anticipate how important countries might position themselves, how friendly countries might behave under pressure and how indeed they were going to turn things around for a better deal. We need to rebuild our negotiating capacity to make up for the lost ground through vigorous bilateral negotiations.