This is how USA protects their home-based industry, and in Bangladesh protection of home-based industry like food, cosmetics, pharma etc is also critical, to prevent countries like INDIA flooding the BD market, and destroying local industry.
Also, dependance on foreign supply is dangerous policy, BD needs to become self-sufficient, and start imposing high tax, or ban, Indian goods in selected industrial sectors.
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US protectionist bill threatens BD sleeping bag exports, employment
Kazi Azizul Islam New Age, 07 Aug 2010,
A US congress lobby has become active to stop duty-free import of made-in Bangladesh sleeping bags threatening loss of hundreds of jobs.
The move, said an Export Promotion Bureau official, created fresh worries for Bangladesh.
President Barack Obama, on July 12, turned down a plea for imposing duty on the sleeping bags imported from Bangladesh and other developing countries.
Recently, a US manufacturers' lobby convinced a number of Congressmen for tabling a bill, for denying the facility to Bangladesh.
Unlike apparel exports from Bangladesh, categorised under textile products, for which high duty is charged by the US, sleeping bags and golf shafts from developing countries enjoy duty free access.
A senior official of the EPB told New Age that Congressman Robert Aderholt tabled the bill in the house on July 30, for categorising sleeping bags as a textile product, which does not enjoy duty-free market access in the USA.
At least four other US Congressmen, he said, agreed to cosponsor the bill.
The US started increasing the import of sleeping bags from Bangladesh, only recently, due to lower prices.
China has been, traditionally, the largest exporter of sleeping bags to the US.
At least two sleeping bag factories in Bangladesh export sleeping bags to US retailers, including Wal-Mart.
If the US withdraws the duty free access, Bangladesh could lose the market, he said.
Also at stake is the employment of several hundred jobs, he said.
The US industry lobby is trying to withdraw Bangladesh's duty free access to protect the lone American sleeping bag manufacturer, Alabama-based Exxel Outdoors Incorporation, which meets 30 percent of the country's demand for sleeping bags.
Bangladesh's market share in the US is less than seven per cent, with an annual shipment of less than $5 million.
The government of Bangladesh and international campaigners, which support the trade interests of developing countries, he said, should tell the US lawmakers that withdrawal of Bangladesh's duty-free facility on sleeping bags would benefit other exporters more than the US manufacturers.
Under the US scheme of general system of preference, Bangladesh and other developing countries get duty-free access for certain export items like sleeping bags and golf shafts.
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