Give export cash incentive, cut tax

Garment accessories makers and exporters yesterday demanded cash incentives on export, reduction of corporate taxes and smooth functioning of the country's premier port in Chittagong.

The demands came at a seminar on “$50 billion RMG export by 2021: Role and Challenges of Garments Accessories and Packaging Sector” organised by the Bangladesh Garments Accessories and Packaging Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGAPMEA) at the Cirdap auditorium in Dhaka.

Abdul Kader Khan, president of BGAPMEA, chaired the seminar and its former president Rafez Alam Chowdhury gave a keynote presentation.

Chowdhury said the backward linkage industry met demands for accessories and packaging of nearly 95 percent of export-oriented industries, including the garment and pharmaceutical sector.

The accessories sector earned $6.7 billion through “deemed exports” while it also made direct exports worth $1.12 billion in the last fiscal year.

The accessories sector never gets any cash incentive against the export earnings as given to other sectors that help those flourish, Chowdhury said.

The government fixed corporate tax at 10 percent and 12 percent for green and non-green apparel factories whereas the rate is 35 percent for its backward linkage garment accessories and packaging industry, he said demanding equal tax measures for the sub-sector.

Price competitiveness is gradually declining mainly because of a strong local currency against the US dollar, said Abdus Salam Murshedy, president of the Exporters Association of Bangladesh.

He also called for setting up an inland container depot near the production hub in Gazipur.

Activities at the Kamalapur inland container depot (ICD) virtually remain suspended as Dhaka city is not the production area and trucks cannot move during the daytime in the city, said Mashiur Rahman, economic affairs adviser to the prime minister.

“We can consider relocation of the ICD to the areas where our main export product, readymade garment, is being manufactured.”

Khondaker Golam Moazzem, research director at the Centre for Policy Dialogue, said the Export Promotion Bureau should include accessories and packaging export earnings data in its regular database.

Kazi M Aminul Islam, executive chairman of Bangladesh Investment Development Authority; Shubhashish Bose, commerce secretary; Bijoy Bhattacharjee, vice chairman of Export Promotion Bureau, and Shafiul Islam Mohiuddin, president of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry, also spoke.