NEWS reports in the dailies say that Bangladesh’s tea growers have demanded a duty increase on import of tea by more than 25 percentage points to protect the local producers from ‘uneven competition’ with the imported one. Reports further added that the Bangladesh Tea Association earlier this month placed its demand to the Finance and Commerce Ministries and the National Board of Revenue seeking an increase of total duty on tea import to 110 percent from the existing 84 percent.
Officials concerned said that the duty level should be kept consistent with that of neighbouring tea producing countries like India and Sri Lanka to discourage import, according to the reports. Data show that in India, the rate of duty on import of tea is 110 percent while that is 130 percent in Sri Lanka. Apparently the local tea growers are facing uneven and tough competition with the importers due to low duty on its import. Moreover, the quality of imported tea is also substandard. The import of tea skyrocketed to 10.62 million kg in 2013 due to the withdrawal of the supplementary duty and in April 2014, the Revenue Board increased regulatory duty to 15 percent from 5 percent in line with the repeated demand from the tea growers and its import fell down to 6.96 million kg in the year. News reports indicate that local producers are losing the market and not getting fair prices as imported tea is cheaper.
While it is nice to have access to international products, it is no longer wise when locally-made products are put at a huge disadvantage because of a huge amount of imports. Bangladesh is a country that has not been allowed to produce much locally and instead relies heavily on imported products. Any product that is produced locally should be used and supported by the government so that local businesses, which feed into the economy, do not perish. By all logic, local products demand production first. If import tax on the international tea is increased, import will be discouraged which will help the industry survive and local products will have a better chance in the local markets. If implemented and grown successfully, the local production might improve enough to gradually enter the international market.
Sadly the current government is more focused on systematically making the nation more dependent on imports, which is why it is cheaper to import goods instead of growing them. This greatly hampers and discourages local production and shows that the government’s interests do not lie in developing the country. We hope the move is approved by the government and tax on tea import is increased so that no unfair competition occurs in the markets.
