Staff Reporter :
The National Board of Revenue (NBR) will formulate permanent policies for the country’s Light Engineering (LE) sector in a bid to create employment and save foreign exchange through local manufacturing.
The sector insiders estimated that the market size of the industry at Tk 600 billion with a possible production range of over 10,000 types of products.
The sector caters to the needs of spare parts for agriculture, textiles, garments, jute mills, poultry, paper, cement, sugar, food processing, railway, shipping and a host of other areas, they said.
Light engineering sector commends itself for some very important reasons like Job creation at a rapid pace, adoption of appropriate technologies and catering to the need for more backward linkages to medium and large industries, they added.
Considering the improvement of the sector, the LE industries should be given the opportunity of simplified VAT payment and rationalization of tax structure on the imported raw materials, the sector insiders said.
Speaking at a virtual discussion on Sunday, Industries Ministry Secretary K M Ali Azam said formulation task of the “Light Engineering Development Policy” is going on in full swing in order to strengthening the contribution of the sector to the country’s economy.
The policy will be finalized by holding meeting with the concerned stakeholders soon, he added.
He also said direction has given to the stakeholders including Bangladesh Industrial Technical Assistance Center (BITAC), SME Foundation and Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation (BSCIC) to submit necessary proposals to include in the upcoming budget for the sake of development of the sector as soon as possible.
Besides, steps have been taken to send a list of light engineering, small and medium industries, which are affected by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, to Bangladesh Bank to ensure stimulus package, he added.
He also directed the concern authority to form a new cell at BSCIC giving priority on the light engineering sector and making master trainers for working engineers and employees in different companies of the sector.
On the other hand, Kazi Farid Uddin, First Secretary of the NBR, said that steps have been taken to remove complexities in SROs so that the domestic light engineering companies run their business in the country easily.
“If we want to create employment and save foreign exchange through local manufacturing, we have to develop the light engineering sector,” said Abdur Razzak, President of the Bangladesh Engineering Owners’ Association.
He also proposed to include the sector in Equity Entrepreneurship Fund (EEF) to get low cost fund facility from Bangladesh Bank.
