Finance adviser Salehuddin Ahmed on Wednesday said that the country still had the scope for bargaining over the tariff rate the United States imposed on Bangladeshi exports to the US.
鈥楢 formal deal is yet to be signed,鈥� said Salehuddin after a meeting of the advisory council committee on government purchase at the secretariat in the capital Dhaka.
US president Donald Trump lowered the tariff rate to 20 per cent from 35 per cent following three rounds of talks between Dhaka and Washington and Bangladesh鈥檚 moves to reduce trade deficit between the two countries. The rate initially announced by the Trump administration was 37 per cent.
Terming the revision modest, Salehuddin said, 鈥楾he commerce adviser is still in the US.鈥�
On July 31, the US president announced the lowered rate for Bangladesh effective from August 7 after a Bangladesh delegation led by commerce adviser Sk Bashir Uddin held meetings with the Office of United States Trade Representative, responsible for developing and promoting US foreign trade policies, over the rate.
The finance adviser said that it would have been better had the rate been cut a bit more.
Asked about the non-disclosure issue in this regard, he said that the proposed deal was based one-to-one negotiations and different from the multilateral engagement or the World Trade Organisation.
Scopes for disclosing the bargaining issues in a one-to-one discussion are quite difficult because of competing nations such as India, Pakistan, Vietnam, China and South Korea, said the finance adviser.
On one year of the interim government, which assumed office on August 8, 2024, after the ouster of the authoritarian Awami League regime in a mass uprising, the finance adviser said that they had made a turnaround in the economy from a precarious situation inherited from the ousted Awami League.
Identifying inflation, unemployment, fuel oils and the US tariff major challenges, the finance adviser said that restoring confidence among businesses and brining more momentum in the overall economic activities were the toughest ones.
Salehuddin said that the availability of money for holding the next general elections would not be a problem.
He also said reforms in the banking sector would take time while the revised ordinance bifurcating the National Board of Revenue would be issued soon.