FTA talks with EU likely within a month: Commerce secretary

Bangladesh is hoping to begin formal negotiations for a free trade deal with the European Union within a month, Commerce Secretary Md Ataur Rahman Khan said yesterday.

“We are preparing our position paper now to begin the negotiation with the EU,” Ataur told The Daily Star over phone.

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He added, “The technical committee formed to negotiate with the EU is scheduled to hold a meeting to fix Bangladesh’s position on trade in goods and services, rules of origin and intellectual property rights, soon.”

The EU is also preparing its position paper to facilitate the start of the negotiation, Ataur said.

Both sides have already appointed their chief negotiators, the secretary said. However, no date has been set for the negotiations to start.

The commerce ministry will hold a series of meetings with stakeholders across different economic and business sectors to gauge their position on the deal with the EU, Ataur informed.

He, however, noted that even if the negotiation starts soon, it might take years to reach an agreement, as trade deals with large economies or blocs like the EU typically take several years to conclude. According to the secretary, an agreement with the EU may take three to four years to finalise.

He pointed out that the India-EU free trade negotiation took nearly 20 years to conclude, after being suspended for several years. The two sides had begun negotiations in 2007 and finally concluded their agreement this January.

The EU is the largest trading bloc for Bangladesh, absorbing nearly half of total national merchandise shipments.

According to European Commission data, Bangladesh was the EU’s 35th-largest trading partner in 2025, accounting for 0.5 percent of the EU’s total goods trade.

The EU, meanwhile, was Bangladesh’s largest trading partner, with a 21.5 percent share of the country’s global merchandise trade.

Bilateral trade in goods reached €23.3 billion in 2025, leaving the EU with a €19.1 billion trade deficit in Bangladesh’s favour. Textiles made up nearly 94 percent of EU imports from Bangladesh that year.

Bangladesh is also the largest beneficiary of the EU’s Everything But Arms (EBA) arrangement, with €19 billion worth of exports benefiting from duty-free preferences in 2024 at a 96 percent utilisation rate.