News Desk: After Chapainawabganj's Khirsapat mango, the juicy, fibreless and very large Fazli mango and the black-striped bagda shrimp are soon to receive geographical indication (GI) certificates.

Md Abdus Sattar, registrar of the government's Department of Patents, Designs and Trademarks, said the gazette recognising the Fazli mango and bagda shrimp as GI products has already been published, and the certificates will be issued within about fifteen days.

He said that, as the rules require, after the applications were received the geographical indication of the two agricultural products was verified and two journals were published. No one has yet objected. If no one objects within two months of a journal's publication by claiming the product as their own, the certificate is issued, he said.

The GI application for the Fazli mango was filed by the Fruit Development Research Centre, and that for the bagda shrimp by the Department of Fisheries.

The Fazli, which comes to market towards the end of the mango season, is also grown in neighbouring India's West Bengal, and the saltwater bagda shrimp is found in several Asian countries.

Explaining why the two products should receive Bangladesh's GI certificate, Md Abdus Sattar said: "The certificate is given for a product that is part of a region's heritage. The characteristics, aroma and taste of any agricultural product depend on the weather, soil, water and geography, and it will grow in a particular region."

"For example, black tiger shrimp, or bagda, is found in several Asian countries. But the characteristics of the one grown here will not match any other. Even if it is farmed elsewhere, its taste and aroma will not match."

Nine Bangladeshi products have received GI certificates so far: hilsa, Chapainawabganj's Khirsapat mango, Dinajpur's Kataribhog rice, Bangladeshi kalijira, Jamdani, Dhakai muslin, Rajshahi silk, Rangpur's shataranji and the white clay of Bijoypur in Netrokona.

Bagda shrimp is an important cash species. It has been farmed commercially in Bangladesh since the 1980s and is exported, though exports have fallen somewhat recently.

Sattar said: "We have seen that after getting a GI certificate, the prices of various products in foreign markets rise by up to 30 per cent. The GI tag works as branding. Many people export bagda shrimp from Bangladesh. Without a GI certificate its price is lower, as buyers do not consider it branded."

He said that according to BSCIC data, both exports and the price of Jamdani rose after it received its GI certificate.

With a GI certificate, Sattar said, Bangladesh will gain the right to produce the product and legal protection for it, and no other country will be able to claim it as its own.

Source: Amader Shomoy. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.