Raise customs duty on rubber import
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Environment and Forests Ministry yesterday urged the government to increase customs duty on importing rubber to save the industry.
At a meeting, it also recommended that all kinds of VAT and taxes for selling the locally produced rubber be withdrawn.
“One has to pay 15 percent to 24 percent of VAT and other taxes for selling local rubber while only five percent of tax is for its import,” the committee chief Hasan Mahmud, also an Awami League lawmaker, told reporters after the meeting at Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban.
He said 5,000 tonnes of rubber remained unsold due to high taxes in the local market.
“Instead of buying from the local markets, people are importing rubber due to very low customs duty, which is destroying the industry.”
Hasan Mahmud also said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in June instructed to withdraw VAT in selling rubber.
“But due to pressure from a vested quarter, the prime minister's instruction was not included while passage of the national budget in the parliament,” he said, calling upon the premier to save the rubber industry from the hands of a “vested quarter”. The committee chief, however, did not elaborate about the vested quarter.
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