SOFA, HANA, TIFA, TICFA and US-Bangladesh relations
By Mamun Rashid
The Washington-Dhaka bilateral relationship has always been treated like that of a 'younger brother's wife and the husband's elder brother' in Bangladesh. They might like or hate each other but it is not much discussed in public.(The Financial Express)
The USA did not play a palatable role during our war of liberation; rather, they acted against us, siding with the Pakistan occupation forces. Yet the US has emerged as our biggest trade partner. Bangladesh's annual exports to the US crossed US$ 5.0 billion and our annual imports from them is almost US$ 700 million, telling us our export basket is heavily biased towards their market. With the emergence of an almost unipolar world in which the USA is one of the key custodians and champions of democracy and democratic values, their political importance has also been increasingly accepted. This has become more important; decisions in other big economies/countries like those of Japan, China, India, Brazil, the United Kingdom and France, are also being influenced by them to a great extent. Even in Bangladesh, we have seen the envoys of India and Great Britain and our meant-to-be third voice, 'the civil society' queuing up under their leadership during all political transitions including the much-talked about 1/11 government.
Interestingly though, while some of the left leaning organisations and few 'think-tanks' have always been critical about the USA's role in the countries like Bangladesh, one big thing about the US diplomacy is that they always kept cool, being focused more on democracy, global peace and security issues. This scribe's international business teacher at Henley Business School, while talking about rise of China and India, especially 'Chindia syndrome', did tell us, how things are increasingly becoming only business interest-driven for India and China, whereas it is not the case with the USA or even Britain. They never lose sight of the development and social issues, even to their minimum possible extent.
Having said so, we have always seen our policy-planners or decision-makers downplaying the issues like SOFA (Status of forces agreement), HANA (humanitarian assistance need assessment), TIFA (Trade and Investment frame work agreement) or the latest 'TICFA (Trade and Investment cooperation framework agreement)' when discussions about signing them, were or have been, taking place. We have always seen our people, at least pretending to be 'not sure' or 'not prepared' or telling in public, 'we need to explore or study more.'
While we understand and appreciate why a 'SOFA' -- which is basically a security intervention or for allowing their security people to visit our country all of a sudden, with a clearance to the leader of the contingent and without anything being asked about the accompanying troops or weapons and vice versa -- could not be entertained by a weakly governed but democratically elected government, we could not figure out why we could not close out on HANA, even during the 1998 floods and had to almost put the boss of the ministry of foreign affairs on the dock. Thank God, the then Finance Minister SAMS Kibria considered it that without a 'HANA' visit by a three-member team, Bangladesh could not have received 500 thousand metric tonnes of food during that critical time.
In the same way, there have been much talks about the signing of the "Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA)" between Bangladesh and the US. Bangladesh and the US were discussing signing of the TIFA agreement for more than seven years since 2001. The draft agreement was exchanged a number of times during the last political regime and again then during the tenure of the caretaker government. It gained a momentum during the fag end of the caretaker government's rule and the draft was finalised. But in order to avoid any controversy, the caretaker government refrained itself from signing the agreement and left it for the next elected government to decide about it.
The debate was revolving around TIFA's emphasis on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and reduction of non-tariff barriers. But in practice there are little non-tariff barriers to the exports of Bangladesh goods to the US market. As a least developed country (LDC), Bangladesh is entitled to certain benefits from the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which the TIFA reportedly did not take into consideration.
The main export item for Bangladesh to the US market is the ready-made garments (RMG) and there has been no guarantee in the TIFA regarding duty-free access of our RMG products to the US. On the other hand, the US felt that in the absence of proper implementation of IPR, the US companies were suffering in business.
Under the WTO, Bangladesh is insulated from the Patent Act until 2016 (likely to be extended further) and taking that advantage, the pharmaceutical industries of Bangladesh are manufacturing and exporting medicine items to almost 75 countries around the world. And now if we have to follow the IPR, Bangladesh has to incur huge expenses, as the big US companies license out most patents. The IT expenditure will also be increased to license software. For signing the TIFA, Bangladesh wanted to incorporate the advantages it is entitled to enjoy as an LDC under the WTO framework. There were also heightened discussions on labour standards in Bangladesh and allowing trade unions to function normally in its export processing zones (EPZs), as desired by the free labour unions/federation in the USA. Bangladesh was very shy of this, as it was committed to the EPZ investors about not allowing labour union activities there. This writer remembers having a polite debate with the then US Ambassador, Harry K Thomas, on why there should be insistence from the US side on this issue, as most of the EPZ investors in Bangladesh come from non-US countries like Korea and China. This writer was then told that ultimately both the parties had resolved that workers welfare association would be allowed in the EPZs. So much of time spent on 'much ado about nothing'; it took away both the parties' interest in 'TIFA'. Now the new baby, named 'TICFA' has come on the agenda. The USA is telling us to focus on TICFA, in order to promote and deepen bilateral relations in an orderly or structured manner between two important trade and development partners. This is being more identified as a 'bilateral platform' or discussion channel, to help quicken the process, instead of long drawn-out ways for dealing with bilateral matters with Bangladesh under an LDC umbrella or any other multilateral route.
Ironically again, we find ourselves unprepared, issues not being fine-tuned to suit best our national interest or political developments within the country, making the government shy of signing anything like 'TICFA' at this point in time. Rather gossips are telling us that Bangladesh is likely to sign a broad-based framework agreement, mostly focusing on regional cooperation, fighting terrorism and disaster management during the visit of the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, to Dhaka, in order to pave the way for signing a more fine-tuned trade and investment agreement in the future.
This is both good and bad. It is good for the reason that a country like Bangladesh with its sub-optimal literacy rate, its 'never can get united on handling major issues' or `reach agreement on the way out' situation, and with a government with 'winner takes it all' practices, should go slow and do their home work first before signing anything major with a country like 'husband's big brother'. It is bad, because a country -- and also a market named -- Myanmar -- is rising next to us, getting prepared to gobble up all possible help and support from the USA. Not unlikely, we may see Myanmar signing a similar agreement earlier than us. While it is better to know the broader definition of 'terrorism' or a 'terrorist' to make sure that political opposition is not being unnecessarily put on the dock with an allegation of 'terrorism', we do not also want Bangladesh to 'fall out' from any possible support from a large and influential partner like the USA in order to ensure more US investment in Bangladesh and most importantly duty-free access of 'made-in-Bangladesh' goods to the USA.
There could be 'win win' for both the parties. For the USA, it is for being more closely involved in the development process of a liberal Muslim country, which has become a better brand for successful 'blending of democracy and religion' and to be able to export some of its' best practices to other similar countries; for Bangladesh, it is for more export gains, more employment opportunities and more footprint in the global markets, with increasing investment on domestic capacity building along with improved governance and political tolerance.
(Mamun Rashid is a professor and Director at Brac Business School, Brac University. mrashid1961@gmail.com)
http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/more.php?news_id=128514&date=2012-05-04
The USA did not play a palatable role during our war of liberation; rather, they acted against us, siding with the Pakistan occupation forces. Yet the US has emerged as our biggest trade partner. Bangladesh's annual exports to the US crossed US$ 5.0 billion and our annual imports from them is almost US$ 700 million, telling us our export basket is heavily biased towards their market. With the emergence of an almost unipolar world in which the USA is one of the key custodians and champions of democracy and democratic values, their political importance has also been increasingly accepted. This has become more important; decisions in other big economies/countries like those of Japan, China, India, Brazil, the United Kingdom and France, are also being influenced by them to a great extent. Even in Bangladesh, we have seen the envoys of India and Great Britain and our meant-to-be third voice, 'the civil society' queuing up under their leadership during all political transitions including the much-talked about 1/11 government.
Interestingly though, while some of the left leaning organisations and few 'think-tanks' have always been critical about the USA's role in the countries like Bangladesh, one big thing about the US diplomacy is that they always kept cool, being focused more on democracy, global peace and security issues. This scribe's international business teacher at Henley Business School, while talking about rise of China and India, especially 'Chindia syndrome', did tell us, how things are increasingly becoming only business interest-driven for India and China, whereas it is not the case with the USA or even Britain. They never lose sight of the development and social issues, even to their minimum possible extent.
Having said so, we have always seen our policy-planners or decision-makers downplaying the issues like SOFA (Status of forces agreement), HANA (humanitarian assistance need assessment), TIFA (Trade and Investment frame work agreement) or the latest 'TICFA (Trade and Investment cooperation framework agreement)' when discussions about signing them, were or have been, taking place. We have always seen our people, at least pretending to be 'not sure' or 'not prepared' or telling in public, 'we need to explore or study more.'
While we understand and appreciate why a 'SOFA' -- which is basically a security intervention or for allowing their security people to visit our country all of a sudden, with a clearance to the leader of the contingent and without anything being asked about the accompanying troops or weapons and vice versa -- could not be entertained by a weakly governed but democratically elected government, we could not figure out why we could not close out on HANA, even during the 1998 floods and had to almost put the boss of the ministry of foreign affairs on the dock. Thank God, the then Finance Minister SAMS Kibria considered it that without a 'HANA' visit by a three-member team, Bangladesh could not have received 500 thousand metric tonnes of food during that critical time.
In the same way, there have been much talks about the signing of the "Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA)" between Bangladesh and the US. Bangladesh and the US were discussing signing of the TIFA agreement for more than seven years since 2001. The draft agreement was exchanged a number of times during the last political regime and again then during the tenure of the caretaker government. It gained a momentum during the fag end of the caretaker government's rule and the draft was finalised. But in order to avoid any controversy, the caretaker government refrained itself from signing the agreement and left it for the next elected government to decide about it.
The debate was revolving around TIFA's emphasis on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and reduction of non-tariff barriers. But in practice there are little non-tariff barriers to the exports of Bangladesh goods to the US market. As a least developed country (LDC), Bangladesh is entitled to certain benefits from the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which the TIFA reportedly did not take into consideration.
The main export item for Bangladesh to the US market is the ready-made garments (RMG) and there has been no guarantee in the TIFA regarding duty-free access of our RMG products to the US. On the other hand, the US felt that in the absence of proper implementation of IPR, the US companies were suffering in business.
Under the WTO, Bangladesh is insulated from the Patent Act until 2016 (likely to be extended further) and taking that advantage, the pharmaceutical industries of Bangladesh are manufacturing and exporting medicine items to almost 75 countries around the world. And now if we have to follow the IPR, Bangladesh has to incur huge expenses, as the big US companies license out most patents. The IT expenditure will also be increased to license software. For signing the TIFA, Bangladesh wanted to incorporate the advantages it is entitled to enjoy as an LDC under the WTO framework. There were also heightened discussions on labour standards in Bangladesh and allowing trade unions to function normally in its export processing zones (EPZs), as desired by the free labour unions/federation in the USA. Bangladesh was very shy of this, as it was committed to the EPZ investors about not allowing labour union activities there. This writer remembers having a polite debate with the then US Ambassador, Harry K Thomas, on why there should be insistence from the US side on this issue, as most of the EPZ investors in Bangladesh come from non-US countries like Korea and China. This writer was then told that ultimately both the parties had resolved that workers welfare association would be allowed in the EPZs. So much of time spent on 'much ado about nothing'; it took away both the parties' interest in 'TIFA'. Now the new baby, named 'TICFA' has come on the agenda. The USA is telling us to focus on TICFA, in order to promote and deepen bilateral relations in an orderly or structured manner between two important trade and development partners. This is being more identified as a 'bilateral platform' or discussion channel, to help quicken the process, instead of long drawn-out ways for dealing with bilateral matters with Bangladesh under an LDC umbrella or any other multilateral route.
Ironically again, we find ourselves unprepared, issues not being fine-tuned to suit best our national interest or political developments within the country, making the government shy of signing anything like 'TICFA' at this point in time. Rather gossips are telling us that Bangladesh is likely to sign a broad-based framework agreement, mostly focusing on regional cooperation, fighting terrorism and disaster management during the visit of the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, to Dhaka, in order to pave the way for signing a more fine-tuned trade and investment agreement in the future.
This is both good and bad. It is good for the reason that a country like Bangladesh with its sub-optimal literacy rate, its 'never can get united on handling major issues' or `reach agreement on the way out' situation, and with a government with 'winner takes it all' practices, should go slow and do their home work first before signing anything major with a country like 'husband's big brother'. It is bad, because a country -- and also a market named -- Myanmar -- is rising next to us, getting prepared to gobble up all possible help and support from the USA. Not unlikely, we may see Myanmar signing a similar agreement earlier than us. While it is better to know the broader definition of 'terrorism' or a 'terrorist' to make sure that political opposition is not being unnecessarily put on the dock with an allegation of 'terrorism', we do not also want Bangladesh to 'fall out' from any possible support from a large and influential partner like the USA in order to ensure more US investment in Bangladesh and most importantly duty-free access of 'made-in-Bangladesh' goods to the USA.
There could be 'win win' for both the parties. For the USA, it is for being more closely involved in the development process of a liberal Muslim country, which has become a better brand for successful 'blending of democracy and religion' and to be able to export some of its' best practices to other similar countries; for Bangladesh, it is for more export gains, more employment opportunities and more footprint in the global markets, with increasing investment on domestic capacity building along with improved governance and political tolerance.
(Mamun Rashid is a professor and Director at Brac Business School, Brac University. mrashid1961@gmail.com)
http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/more.php?news_id=128514&date=2012-05-04
__._,_.___
