BNP at one with Noab’s demands

The BNP yesterday expressed solidarity with the demands of Newspaper Owners' Association of Bangladesh  (Noab) and urged the government to act immediately to save the industry.

The party in a statement asked the government to fix the Value Added Tax (VAT) and tax of the newspaper industry as per Noab's demand.

"Government initiative is needed to save the [newspaper] industry," Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, secretary general of BNP, said.

Stimulus packages, incentives, bank loans on easy terms and paying up large sums of advertisement bills which have been long due can bring back the newspaper industry from destruction.

"Noab has already placed the demands but government did not respond yet. The government has always kept an adverse attitude towards the newspaper industry," he said.

The BNP secretary general added that this might be why the government was not listening to their demands. He also lamented how journalists were losing their jobs every day.

Newspapers have taken the policy of cost cutting for their survival, he added.