Visiting US Assistant Secretary Donald Lu said today that his country is working very closely with Bangladesh regarding the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) facilities.

"We have to wait for our congress to authorise GSP to any country. But we are working very closely with the government. So, when it gets authorised, the first country on the list would be Bangladesh," he said while speaking to the media after holding a meeting with Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen at the foreign ministry on Sunday (15 January). 

"We had a very honest and open discussion with the foreign minister and secretary," Lu added. 

"United States has made a commitment to democracy and human rights. We speak when we see problems when we can offer suggestions, we stand up for freedom of speech, freedom of expression," the US official said adding "we look forward to moving very closely with our partners here in Bangladesh."

"One of the things that we were very proud of is our dialogue on labour rights. Such an important issue for Bangladeshi people, for our trade relationship, I had the honour of sitting down this morning with Salman Rahman to talk about the way forward," he added.

"We can cooperate on the improvement of labour rights in this country", Donald Lu said adding that he is "very confident" about the progress.

Regarding the Indo-Pacific strategy, he said, "It's just strategy, it's not a club. You don't join if you don't want to. The United States has expressed its desire to allocate more resources, and more attention to the Indo-Pacific including  to Bangladesh."