Emphasising practising of sound, credible and widely accepted rules in international trade, ICC Bangladesh (ICC-B) President Mahbubur Rahman said, robust expansion of international trade would not materialise without the existence and proper use of such rules. Without a uniform set of rules to guide the banks of different countries, the contracting parties will not be able to easily deal with different national documentary credit regulations, and as a result, costs of business will go up as well as international trade will suffer, he said.

“However, the rules are only useful if they are relevant to the needs of the users. So, ICC has periodically updated the UCP to take into account the changing practices of the business world. This has also served as an opportunity to bring on board new best practices by the banks. Clarification of various issues of UCP 600, for example the duration for checking the compliance of documentation, is welcomed by the exporters, importers and bankers as well as other stakeholders,” the ICCB president said.

Mahbubur Rahman made these observations while inaugurating a day-long workshop on ‘Understanding the UCP 600’ at the Hotel Peninsula in Chittagong Saturday. It was organised by ICCB in collaboration with German Technical Co-operation (GTZ). The workshop on the latest international trade rules for letters of credit (LC), namely UCP 600, was held, aiming at raising the skills of the commercial executives of the ready-made garments (RMG), thereby making business easier for the country’s exporters.

He said documentary credit is an integral part of the international trading system, as it reduces risks and facilitates transactions of around $1.25 trillion, estimated to be about 20 per cent of the total yearly worldwide international trade that depends on letters of credit. Terming Bangladesh as situated at the crossroads of the world’s trade routes, the ICCB president said, “we have substantially benefited from this.”

“Our total international trade increased by 17.19 per cent in the FY 2007 reaching $29.6 billion, with broad-based growth across most of the country’s major trading partners,” he added. Stressing the need to build the professional skills of the officials for dealing with international trade, he said, in many industries, ranging from the banks and financial institutions to RMGs, there is no alternative to training for capacity building.

“While living in the arena of globalisation, economic activity of people is expanding beyond the national horizon. Businesses are now getting more international than they were in the past.” “We, the people of Bangladesh, are also within the momentum of these changes, and are getting more involved in international trade day by day. But our main problem is lack of adequate knowledge and awareness.” “We are already in international business, but we have no time to learn the recent developments in international trade.”

“Even we are happy to keep our books and journals in our bookshelves without reading.” “We are very busy with international business, but we are not ready to spend our money and time to acquire knowledge in it”, he also said. Commenting that the latest UCP 600 has been made more precise and consequently more useful to the needs of the users, the ICCB president urged the professionals to be well acquainted with the UCP 600 rules that came into effect across the world from July 1. Otherwise, he cautioned, the local businesses might face discrepancies in their export LCs.

He said, it is a measure of the UCP’s continued relevance, as the banks and commercial parties in more than 175 countries are using it. ICC expert from Europe Vincent O’Brien, who conducted the workshop, also spoke at the inaugural session. A number of senior business leaders of Chittagong as well as the ICCB executives also attended the programme.