BP Business Desk
Bangladesh Reconditioned Vehicles Importers and Dealers Association (BARVIDA) welcomes the Proposed National Budget placed with the initiative of stimulating the economy and to protect the local industry despite the Corona pandemic situation.
It is very necessary to reduce the public expenditure and to take innovative steps for overall socio-economic management to achieve the targeted revenue and the expected growth, BARVIDA opined.
BARVIDA, at its Executive Committee Meeting on the proposed national budget, expressed its formal reaction on Sunday.
BARVIDA expresses its special thanks to the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister for this balanced budget ensuring necessary assistance for the entrepreneurs and the MSME's and expanding the Social Safety Net to manage the present Corona situation.
BARVIDA said that the credit flow should be easier to stimulate the market of reconditioned vehicles. It also demands to include the importers and traders into the incentive package announced by the Government.
BARVIDA thanked Hon'ble Finance Minister for keeping the duty and tax structure unchanged at the proposed budget for importing reconditioned vehicles.
BARVIDA requests to consider imposing the tax on vehicles for renewal of the registration every year. BARVIDA also requests to expand the tax net to achieve the targeted revenue.
According to BARVIDA, in some cases, the duty on import of reconditioned vehicles is almost double compared to those of new cars because of discrimination in customs valuation of cars. As a result, the import of reconditioned cars declined a lot due to less demand from the customers and the businessmen in this sector have been facing a lot of financial losses over the last few years.
This trend also impacted badly on the revenue collection by the Government from this sector. BARVIDA has informed it to NBR and the Hon'ble Finance Minister. The Hon'ble Minister has assured of solving this matter even after passing the budget by issuing SRO.
BARVIDA could realize that the Government is under pressure in generating revenue in this Corona Crisis. BARVIDA wants to be part of this crisis management by paying revenue. The Government can earn more than 1000 Crore taka as revenue from duty and tax of the 8000 imported vehicles stacked at Chattogram and Mongla ports if the port rent for the month of April and May is waived.
Here, it needs to mention that, BARVIDA member companies (870) pay more than Tk 3,000 Crore as revenue to the Government in a year. Moreover, few lakh people are employed in this sector directly or indirectly. The total investment in this sector is Tk 20,000 Crore.
