The Bangladesh Chamber of Industries on Friday said that the implementation of the budget for FY23 would be difficult if the government does not ensure good governance, proper monitoring and proper planning.
In a reaction to the proposed budget, BCI president Anwar-Ul Alam Chowdhury thanked the government led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for delivering a national budget with priorities on mass people demands during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a press release.
However, he said the main challenge for this budget is to control the ongoing inflation.
The government has targeted to keep the average inflation within 5.6 per cent in the proposed budget but there is no specific direction in the speech to implement it, he added.
He further said the capacity of local industries should be increased to tame the inflation in the country.
Citing the proposal in the budget to provide 50 lakh families from the low-income group with rice at Tk 15 per kg, Chowdhury recommended providing the rice at Tk 10 per kg as the government did earlier.
Chowdhury lauded fixing a 12 per cent tax on all export-oriented companies like the apparel industry as it was a reflection of the BCI’s longstanding demand. “We thank the Hon'ble Finance Minister for this. However, in the case of exports, he proposed increasing the source tax to 1 per cent from 0.5 per cent which will leave a negative impact on exports in the current scenario. We are proposing to keep the source tax at 0.50 per cent,” he added.
He also said the proposed budget has reduced the corporate tax by 2.5 per cent which the BCI welcomes but has set some conditions that are difficult to implement.
“Considering inflation and cost of living, I am proposing to increase the tax-free income limit for the next tax year to Tk 4 lakh,” he added.
