Dhaka, Sept. 8 -- Policy Research Institute (PRI) Chairman Zaidi Sattar on Tuesday said Bangladesh's trade policy is at a crossroads, warning that deep tariff protection continues to punish exporters outside the readymade garment (RMG) sector while economy-wide reforms would ultimately pay for themselves without lasting revenue loss.

Speaking at a workshop jointly organised by PRI and the World Bank at the PRI office in Banani, Sattar said the country's high tariff and protection regime has made selling in the domestic market far more profitable than exporting for non-RMG industries, a divergence he described as significant rather than marginal, the "anti-export bias" that PRI has long highlighted in policy circles.

He said the widely-u...