Sick industry association a disgrace: Muhith
Finance Minister AMA Muhith said yesterday having a sick industry association in the country seemed disgraceful.
“To me, the sick industry association is a disgrace,” the minister said after a meeting with Bangladesh Sick Industry Association (BSIA) at the finance ministry.
The minister said the government has a committee to evaluate whether the sick industries could be revived.
“The industries that remained sick for more than 15 years have no right to exist. They can exit from the industrial sector,” he said.
The government plans to make a policy for the sick industries, Muhith said. The committee will make suggestions about the revival of the sick industries. “But they have a very limited work to do,” Muhith said.
When the committee formed in 1998 started working, there were some 108 industries, which became sick. Most of them were spinning mills.
Currently, there are around 700 sick industries in the country -- 270 industries in the RMG sector, 100 in the specialised textile mills sector and 80 in the tannery sector.
After the meeting, BSIA President Chowdhury Mohammad Ishak said they have placed a 10-point demand to the finance minister with an appeal to help the sick industries.
The demands include amending the Aurtho Rin Adalat and withdrawal of cases under this law, to bail out the sick industries, make a new law for sick industries and nationalise all private banks.
Replying to a question, Ishak alleged that banks and government policies were mainly responsible for an industry falling sick.
He said there were some 30 reasons why an industry became sick. "Of them, 19 are related to banks. Only one reason is related to the entrepreneur," he said.
Reasoning out the demand for nationalisation of all private banks, the BSIA president said these private banks became powerful by taking money from the 15 crore people of the country.
“All these are public money and the country should take away such money.”
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