Korea and Bangladesh have closed their trade negotiation in principle, and the tariff Dhaka currently charges on Korean confectionery is 85.6 percent
Korea and Bangladesh have finished negotiating.
Yeo Han-koo, who leads Korea's trade negotiations, and the Bangladeshi commerce minister, Khandakar Abdul Muktadir, declared their comprehensive economic partnership agreement settled in principle in Dhaka on Tuesday. The release is precise about what that phrase covers: the main content is agreed and the negotiation is effectively over, with the remaining technical matters going to working level consultation before signature.
It is the second such agreement Korea has concluded in South Asia, after India.
What Dhaka charges today
The document is more useful for its current tariff rates than for its promises about them.
Bangladesh charges 85.6 percent on imported confectionery. Instant noodles, coffee preparations and seasoned laver each carry 53.6 percent. Vehicle parts, lithium ion batteries, air conditioners and washing machines are at 28 percent, and base oil is at 28 percent as well. Completely knocked down vehicles run from 53.6 percent to 220 percent depending on the item, and all of those rates are listed for elimination.
Diesel is at 6 percent. That matters more than the large numbers, because petroleum products are the single largest thing Korea sells into the country, at $790m in 2025 against $50m of insecticides and $50m of steel.
Fully built vehicles do not get a tariff cut. They get treatment no worse than other countries receive, which is a different and weaker thing.
The opening, measured
On provisional figures, Korea would remove tariffs on 81.7 percent of lines, covering 97.5 percent of what it imports from Bangladesh. Bangladesh would remove them on 81.4 percent of lines, covering 87.5 percent of import value.
Two way trade was $2.37bn in 2025, up about 20 percent on the year.
Origin rules cut in both directions in the text. Petrochemicals, steel, electronics, machinery and consumer goods get flexible treatment, so that Korean manufacturers can use some non originating inputs and keep the preference. Fresh agricultural and fishery goods get the strict version, and seasoned laver has to use originating raw material, which the release presents as a deliberate protection for domestic production.
The parts that are not about tariffs
Around 90 service sectors are opened, among them audiovisual content, e-learning, medical services, telecommunications, construction and distribution.
The digital chapter permits cross border data transfer and prohibits requirements to localise computing facilities or to hand over source code. On investment, the agreement goes beyond the existing bilateral treaty on transfer of funds and introduces investor state dispute settlement, which that treaty does not contain.
The context on the Bangladeshi side is a deadline of its own. The country is approaching graduation from least developed country status, which ends or reduces the preferential tariff treatment its exports currently receive in developed markets, and it is negotiating agreements and pursuing accession to the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership against that clock. Its own gain here is a tariff route into Korea for textiles and clothing.
Yeo met the prime minister, Tarique Rahman, on Monday, the day before the declaration. He said the agreement would connect Korean firms to a market of 170 million people and widen the relationship beyond trade in goods into infrastructure and industry.
Negotiations opened in November 2024 and ran to five formal rounds.
