Ice cream, soft drinks to get costlier
The prices of ice cream and carbonated beverages are all set to see a hike as the government wants to raise supplementary duty (SD) by 5 percentage points on the two food items.
The government proposed increasing the SD on ice cream to 10 percent from the existing 5 percent and making it 30 percent for carbonated beverages from the current 25 percent.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. 
Seven brands in Bangladesh -- Igloo, Polar, Lovello, Kwality, Za'n Zee, Bloop and Savoy -- cater to a domestic demand of about six crore litres of ice cream a year.
Of them, Igloo is the market leader with a 38 percent share, followed by Polar with 27 percent, Lovello 14 percent and Kwality 9 percent, according to the industry players.
Bangladesh's soft drinks market, which is estimated to Tk 4,000 crore to Tk 6,000 crore, is catered by two US-based soft drink makers Coca-Cola and Pepsico along with several local beverage makers such as Pran, Akij and Partex.
Comments