BWCCI lauds FY25 budget as rational, balanced

The Bangladesh Women Chamber of Commerce & Industry (BWCCI) has congratulated Finance Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali for announcing a rational, gender balanced and extensive budget for FY25 to construct a Smart Bangladesh.

BWCCI, a national platform of women entrepreneurs, expressed its gratitude to the government for giving highest importance on employment and skills, technical education and skill development training, women empowerment and children welfare, SME and service sector, industrial sectors and ICT and e-commerce as priority sectors.

BWCCI especially thanks the government for the online service system for government services in all sectors, increasing the tax coverage, tariff reduction for health protection and medical instruments, and increasing the supplementary duty fee on tobacco products, reads a press release.

In addition, BWCCI strongly recommends incorporation of the following points for the welfare of women entrepreneurs in the revised national budget of the fiscal year 2024-2025.

It is necessary to allocate a specific budget in the revenue sector for women entrepreneurs and propose to formulate fair policies for distribution of allocations for women entrepreneurs.

It proposes a 50 per cent reduction in trade license fees and renewal fees for women entrepreneurs.

The existing facilities for women are mainly for small entrepreneurs. Currently women are coming forward in setting up medium and large scale industries. Therefore, we recommend providing special incentives in terms of duties and taxes to women investors in medium and large scale industries.

It proposes to raise the tax free income limit of women to BDT 6 lakh instead of BDT 4 lakh.

It proposes to allocate BDT 200 crore to the SME sector for the development of women entrepreneurs in the national budget for the financial year 2024-2025.

The BWCCI proposed to reduce the VAT rate from 15 per cent to 4 per cent for women entrepreneurs who are in the service sector. The implementation of the above recommendations is especially important in the case of boutiques, beauty parlors, emergency health services, catering services, restaurant businesses, general food stores or food products businesses.

It proposed tax and VAT exemption for the first 3 years of start-up business for new women entrepreneurs.

The BWCCI proposed to allocate a 15 per cent quota instead of 5 per cent for women entrepreneurs in the stimulus package of Bangladesh Bank announced by the government.

We propose to attach a representative from Bangladesh Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BWCCI) to the government’s policy making forum for the development of women entrepreneurs.

BWCCI firmly believes that, if the above proposals are considered in the revised National Budget 2024-2025, the economic empowerment of women will be increased towards the sustainable growth of the country.