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     Meeting
    decided to distribute free quotas   | 
  
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       News  | 
    
       May 12, 2000 
 Dhaka,
      May 11 (UNB) – Although the government’s target of allocating free
      quotas has failed, a high level meeting today (Thursday) decided to
      distribute free quotas for the year 2000 to export readymade garments.   Since
      applications were invited for free quotas of the year 2000 as per earlier
      decision and many organisations have already applied for, the quotas will
      be allocated only for the year, the meeting decided.   Commerce
      Minister Abdul Jalil chaired the meeting attended by Additional Commerce
      Secretary Mohammad Fazlul Huq, Vice Chairman of Export Promotion Bureau AB
      Chowdhury and officials concerned.   Free
      quota was introduced to generate new entrepreneurs and exporters in the
      garment sector, the country’s lion export earner.   But,
      the meeting observed that 98 per cent of the free quota-awarded
      organisations sale their allocated quotas creating quota brokers who are
      being benefited through transferring those from one hand to another.   The
      meeting said it also provoked corruption and an informal quota market, and
      thus increased price of garments products, said an official handout.    As
      a result, the government’s aim of introducing the quota did not see any
      success, it said. 
 
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