Enhancing Public Availability of Customs Information
In the Islamic Countries
89
enquiries; among those, 145 questions had already been responded (97% of answers were
provided in less than 72 hours), as of October 3, 2018. During this period the NEP had been
visited by over 77,000 visitors. .
However, most government agencies still have decentralized enquiry points housed within the
departments responsible for providing information related to their specific subject area. For
example, the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB), or the Bangladesh Standard and Testing
Institution (BSTI) have their own information centers to respond to specific queries related to
export or standards.
Trade Portal: Structure and Operation
Bangladesh Trade Portal
The government of Bangladesh launched a trade portal in March 2016, with support from the
World Bank Group’s Trade Facilitation Support Program to provide a one-stop point for
country’s trade related information for interested stakeholders. The Bangladesh Trade Portal is
an official source of all regulatory information relevant to traders who wish to import goods into
Bangladesh or to export to other countries, and represents an important step towards
improving the predictability and transparency of the country’s trading system. This is in line
with the government’s commitment to facilitate information sharing in compliance with Article
1 of the WTO TFA.
The Bangladesh Trade Portal is hosted by the Ministry of Commerce on behalf of all government
departments and agencies involved in regulating import-export procedures. The Bangladesh
trade portal is still in its Beta version. The Ministry of Commerce is responsible for updating the
information on the portal, and has formed a technical committee incorporating relevant
departments and organizations to support the updating process. It is working closely with the
World Bank under the Bangladesh Regional Connectivity Project for further improvement and
enrichment of the portal. It is at the final stage of signing MOUs with all relevant organizations
for quick exchange of relevant information for the purpose of ensuring that the information is
accurately and fully published on the website in a timely manner. It is also in the process of
appointing a trade expert and an advisor for supporting the update process. It has also been
decided that the trade portal will be hosted in the data center of the Bangladesh Computer
Council under a service level agreement between the Ministry of Commerce and the Bangladesh
Information and ICT Division.
As an example of workflow under this system, the figure below shows a flowchart for obtaining
a trade license in Bangladesh.