Rules of origin effect: Bangladesh's performance under Australian preferential scheme

The objective of this paper is to scrutinize whether the rules of origin criteria in Australian trade preference scheme are guided by the desired benefits of non-tariff barrier or not. Trade preference schemes of developed countries to Least Developed Countries (LDCs) are important parts of foreign trade policy of advanced nations. For LDCs, availing trade preferences is also important for the success of their exportoriented economic growth and integration to the global economy. However, such measures of trade liberalization from developed countries are clouted by protectionist measures like stringent rules of origin to avail preference, which tend to nullify the welfare-enhancing outcomes of trade preference. With a relatively less protectionist regime, Australia has been providing duty-free and quota-free market access to all products from all LDCs since 2003. Nevertheless, despite being a least developed country, Bangladesh could not get the desirable benefits from Australian trade preference scheme over the last few years. The case of Bangladesh's poor performance under Australian scheme consequently aims to observe whether rules of origin have any effect on meager preference utilization as registered by Bangladesh.