Furniture manufacturers on Tuesday demanded to reduce supplementary duty and withdraw regulatory duty on raw material import in the upcoming national budget for 2022-23.
They came up with the demand at the first meeting of the FBCCI Standing Committee on Furniture, Particle Board and related issues held at the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) office in Dhaka, a press release said.
At present, the furniture industry pays 20 per cent supplementary duty and 3 per cent regulatory duty on imported raw materials.
The speakers said that although a 15 per cent incentive is given for furniture export, it was more like a duty drawback as unlike other export-oriented industries, they don’t enjoy zero duty on import of the raw materials.
Therefore, the government has arranged this incentive to return the money paid as tax and duty.
However, the businessmen urged the government to provide at least 20 per cent incentive from 15 per cent in the next fiscal year.
Mentioning that the total tax incidence in the furniture sector is 89 per cent, they also demanded to reduce the tax in the new budget.
Entrepreneurs said that with the government's policy support, it will be possible to create more jobs in the industry in the future alongside the RMG sector.
At the same time, the speakers raised the issue of harassment of tax officials and demanded an end to this suffering.
FBCCI Vice-President MA Momen, who was present as the chief guest at the meeting, asked the Standing Committee to identify the inconsistencies in the tax structure of the furniture industry and inform the FBCCI.
He assured that the FBCCI would work with the National Board of Revenue (NBR) to address the discrepancies in the forthcoming budget.
Earlier, director in charge of the standing committee and Managing Director of Akhtar Furniture KM Akhtaruzzaman said Bangladesh's furniture exports would increase further if a bonded warehouse facility was given.
Partex Star Group Chairman Aziz Al-Kaiser, also the chairman of the committee, cited high taxes as the biggest obstacle to furniture exports.
Standing Committee Co-chairman and Hatil Furniture Managing Director Selim H Rahman, Nadia Furniture Managing Director Karim Majumder, Partex Furniture Head of Business Md Shah Alam Monshi, FBCCI Secretary General Mohammad Mahfuzul Hoque and other members of the committee were present at the meeting.
