BSS, Dhaka :
Experts at a national workshop today suggested the government to gradually reduce incentives and subsidies in exports which are not consistent with the rules and regulations of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and thus incentivizing the export sector in an alternate way through developing a strategy.
The suggestions came from a national workshop on the sub-committee on “Internal revenue mobilization and tariff rationalization” held at the Ministry of Finance in the capital on Saturday.
The government has already formed a national committee, headed by Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister Dr Ahmad Kaikaus, to take necessary preparations, planning, implementation and monitoring to successfully face the challenges of the post LDC graduation.
To assist the operations of the national committee, seven sector-specific sub committees were formed. The sub-committee on “Internal revenue mobilization and tariff rationalization” organized this workshop today to share the draft recommendations on smooth LDC graduation with the concerned stakeholders and thus finalizing those.
Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister Dr Ahmad Kaikaus spoke at the workshop as the chief guest, presided over by Senior Secretary of the Finance Division Fatima Yasmin. FBCCI President Md Jashim Uddin, BGMEA President Faruque Hassan, BIDS Director General Dr Binayek Sen, PRI Chairman Dr Zaidi Sattar spoke on the occasion.
Bangladesh Bank Governor Abdur Rouf Talukder, National Board of Revenue (NBR) Chairman Abu Hena Md Rahmatul Muneem, Senior Secretary of the Ministry of Commerce Tapan Kanti Ghosh spoke as panelists.
Convenors of the three study groups formed under this sub-committee placed the main recommendations at the workshop.
NBR member (Tax policy) Dr Shams Uddin Ahmed made recommendations on the tax related rules, regulations and reform measures, NBR member (customs policy) Masud Sadique made a presentation on tariff rationalization while director general of the monitoring cell at the Finance Division Arfin Ara Begum placed recommendations on export incentives, said a Finance Ministry press release.
The speakers at the workshop said that due to the graduation as a developing country from the LDC status, Bangladesh would lose the duty-free and quota-free access while there will be preference erosion for the Bangladeshi export items.
In order to boost export earnings, there is a need to strike more Free Trade Agreements and Preferential Trade Agreements with different countries for which there is a risk for reducing revenue income.
The study group on tax related rules and regulations and method reforms in their presentation gave special emphasis on expanding the coverage in automation in the tax administration and digitization.
Besides, it was also recommended in the meeting to make the revenue generation related laws like (new customs act, new income tax act) consistent with the international best practices. Apart from this, the experts suggested for modernizing the operations for simplifying the customs process and making speedy the goods unloading procedure.
