China will provide 100% duty-free market facilities to Bangladesh
September 24, 20242 Mins Read
Jumbangla Desk: China will provide 100% duty-free market facilities to Bangladesh from December this year. The Chinese Embassy in Dhaka announced this information in a circular on Monday.

China-BD

It was reported that on September 5, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the voluntary opening of China's market at the China-Africa Cooperation Conference in Beijing. However, 33 countries in Africa, including countries with which China has diplomatic relations and which are among the least developed countries, will get 100% duty-free benefits for exporting goods. China is the first country to take such a decision.
The announcement in this regard was recently made by the Chinese Customs Department. And this facility will be available from December 1. As a least developed country, Bangladesh will get 100% duty free facility in exporting its products.

Exporters feel that the 100% duty-free facility will undoubtedly increase exports to China. However, in order to reap the full benefits of this announcement, attention should be paid to other products besides ready-made clothes. When asked to know, ABM Shamsuddin, the managing director of Hannan Group, a large industrial company in the ready-made clothing sector, said that the annual export of clothing is now about 100 million dollars. The new announcement will further increase exports. However, as there are not many products in the export list, we will not be able to make full use of this facility.

He said, we do not import any products including industrial raw materials. As a result, in order to realize the benefits of the announcement at the government level, we have to diversify the export products along with the clothes. Otherwise this declaration will end up being limited to pleasing the world.

In 2022, China granted duty-free benefits to 98 percent of Bangladeshi products, including 383 new products, including leather and leather products. In 2020, this facility was in 97 percent of Bangladeshi products. At present, all the processes of exporting Bangladeshi mangoes to the Chinese market are at the final stage. Dhaka can start exporting mangoes to Beijing from next season. Besides, several Bangladeshi fruits including jackfruit, guava are in the process of being exported to the Chinese market.

China is the largest trading partner of Bangladesh. In the fiscal year 2022-23, Bangladesh imported goods worth 18.6 billion dollars from China. And 676 million dollars worth of products are exported from Bangladesh to China.