Staff Reporter :
Experts and the sector insiders on Tuesday projected that the country’s plastic industry will be the 40th largest exporter by 2030.
They came up with the projection while speaking at a workshop organised by the Business Initiative Leading Development (BUILD) and the Commerce Ministry
jointly at Export Competitiveness for Jobs (EC4J) project office to finalise the export roadmaps on plastic and light engineering sectors.
Tapan Kanti Ghosh, Senior Secretary of the Commerce Ministry, endorsed the projection of the BUILD for the plastic sector roadmap to be the 40th largest exporter by 2030.
In order to meet the target, he asked the stakeholders regarding the needs to support since the government is keen to see higher export growth through relevant policy interventions.
He also directed relevant agencies to accomplish their tasks outlined in the action plan ahead of the deadline.
The Commerce Secretary also mentioned that Vietnam could enhance its light engineering and bicycle export because they secured significant FDI.
After 2026, when Bangladesh will graduate from LDC status, the government will not extend cash subsidy but provide support in the forms of research, knowledge, logistics, and so on.
Bangladesh needs to shift its product concentration to sectors like light engineering so that it can gradually move upwards in its industrialisation pathway, he said.
Referring different projections of the light engineering sector, the senior secretary also said that considering the global export of 700 trillion, economic situation, supportive policies extended by the government and the target of perspective plan to be a developed country, there is a need for alternative projections.
BUILD CEO Ferdaus Ara Begum informed that plastic toy has got huge potentials to be a significant export product along with automobile components, provided that the sector is supported with policies such bonded warehouse facilities and reduced lead time. She also urged to officiate the deemed export figures for calculating total export of the sector.
Hafizur Rahman, Additional Secretary (Export), Ministry of Commerce, said, we have target to reach export of 80 billion dollars by the marginal year of Export Policy 2021-2024, sectoral targets in the roadmaps should be aligned with export policy target.
Md Monsurul Alam, Project Director, EC4J Project, said that we have roughly 300 plastic recycling factories across the country producing plastic flakes from scraps and exporting around 40,000 tonnes of flakes annually for making yearns. We need to stop it and figure out how we can produce yarns from flakes in Bangladesh.
BPGMEA President Shamim Ahmed also spoke and put emphasis on the need for ease of doing business in import of raw materials and imposed duties and tax in that respect as the sector is heaviliy dependent on import of raw materials.
