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on 09-Feb-03 12:27 PM
http://www.kantipuronline.com/kpost_html/kp_frontpg.htm#US%20Senator%20prepares%20to%20move%20legislation%20for%20Nepal -------copy 'n' paste-------- KATHMANDU, Feb 7 One of the leading United States Senators Dianne Feinstein is preparing to move a legislation in the United States Congress with aims to provide duty- and quota-free market access to Nepali garments in the world's largest market, which also absorbs over 85 percent of the total garments exported from Nepal. The legislation still in an initial stage would be similar to the African Growth and Opportunity Bill and the Caribbean Bill, both of which were approved by the US Congress in 2000. The two bills had paved way for free access to Caribbean and Sub-Saharan African garments in the US market. Nepali garment entrepreneurs had long been urging the US government to provide free market facility arguing that Nepal lies well below the per capita income slab of US$ 1,500 that the US had set before granting the duty- and quota-free market access to African and Caribbean garments. Knowledgeable sources told The Kathmandu Post that staff working in the office of the Senator is presently drafting the legislation. However, adding that Congressman James Walsh, based on the draft legislation, would help prepare a similar legislation to be presented to the Congress, the sources set no dates for completion. Such initiation from the level of a Senator comes as a result of the recent government-private sector joint delegation from Nepal that had made detailed presentations in the US over the trade needs of a least developed landlocked country like Nepal. The delegation had returned back to Nepal less than two weeks ago. The delegation, which included a joint secretary from the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Civil Supplies, among other private sector entrepreneurs, had made detailed presentations in the US with the hope of obtaining free market access facility for Nepali products by convincing the American government that Nepal needs such concessions. The delegation during their visit had made the presentations not just in the presence of some Senators but also in the State Department, the Commerce Department and the office of the United States Trade Representative, clearly articulating the socio-economic impact that restricted market access to Nepali goods in the United States was having on Nepal. The latest initiation from a US official comes as sweet music to Nepali garment entrepreneurs whose exports have substantially fallen in the last two years. Against the export of US$ 164 million worth of garments in the year 2000, the export of the largest foreign currency earning item had gone down to US$ 106 million in 2002. Concerned entrepreneurs are of the view that the onus now lies on the government to follow up on what was achieved during the recent visit. "If the government does not act even now, then all that has been achieved can be lost," said a garment entrepreneur who preferred to remain unnamed. The legislation if passed by the Congress would come as a boon for Nepali garment industry, not just in the context of the present hardship that the sector is passing through, but even in the context of the impending revocation of the Multi-Fibre Arrangement in December 2004. |