Bangladesh is already in the process of improving the labour rights situation and top bureaucrats will discuss a recent US statement on the issue, said a top commerce ministry official yesterday.

Information will be collected from the foreign ministry of Bangladesh regarding specific aspects that should be discussed, said Senior Commerce Secretary Tapan Kanti Ghosh.

US Secretary of State Antony J Blinken talked about the labour rights situation in different countries at the rollout of a Presidential Memorandum on "Advancing Worker Empowerment, Rights, and High Labour Standards Globally" on Thursday.

The US will work to hold accountable those who threaten, intimidate, and attack union leaders, labour rights defenders and labour organisations, he said.

Tools like sanctions, trade penalties and visa restrictions will be used against them, he said.

"We want to be there for people like Kalpona Atker, a Bangladeshi garment worker and activist, who says that she is alive today because the US embassy advocated on her behalf," said Blinken.

"When we use our voice, when we use our advocacy around the world, we can make a concrete difference in making sure that those who are trying to advance labour rights are protected and defended," he said.

"Finally, we will step up our due diligence and enforcement to ensure that our own trade agreements, supply chains protect workers, and that we're not importing goods made with forced labour," he said.

The improvement of labour rights is a continuous process and the government has been working on it over the last few years, Ghosh told The Daily Star over the phone.

It is specifically aimed at retaining preferential trade benefits provided by the European Union (EU) in the form of reduced or zero rates of customs duties, he said.

Bangladesh is set to lose the Generalised Scheme of Preferences facility once it makes the status graduation to a developing nation from a least developed one in 2026.

Ghosh, however, did not specifically state when the top bureaucrats, including secretaries to the commerce, labour and foreign affairs ministries, would sit to discuss Blinken's statement.

Last week the three secretaries held a meeting in Dhaka with a six-member EU delegation to discuss improvements in the labour rights situation as per commitments made in a National Action Plan (NAP).

The government adopted the NAP in 2021 to obtain the GSP facility and, as a part of it, passed Bangladesh Labour (Amendment) Bill 2023 in parliament on November 2.

However, a group of labour leaders of Bangladesh at a meeting at the office of the EU mission in Dhaka on November 14 complained to the delegation that the amended labour law was not worker-friendly for being incorporated with many anti-labour provisions.