The leaders of the Bangladesh Steel Manufacturers Association (BSMA) put forward a number of proposals during a meeting with Prime Minister’s Private Sector Industry and Investment Advisor Salman F Rahman at his office at the PMO on Sunday.
After submitting the proposals, a BSMA leader said they have already submitted the similar proposals to Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal as well.
Arguing in favour of the proposals, the BSMA leaders said currently, the steel manufacturers have to pay Tk 900 for the sale of per tonne steel rod.
“But once a 2 percent VAT is imposed in the new system, the manufacturers have to pay Tk 1,200 per tonne, up by Tk 300,” said association chairman Monwar Hossain who placed the proposals on behalf of the organisation.
The BSMA leaders said the country’s steel production has increased to 5.5 million tonnes in 2019 from 1.6 million tonnes in 2008.
This enormous growth took place because of the government’s business-friendly dynamic policy and one of the pro-development and pro-people policies were the introduction of tariff-based VAT on steel rod, they said.
The organisation leaders also demanded not imposing any duty on the import of raw materials of steel, and continuing the existing tax structure on them.
The other proposals include exempting them from advance income tax and fixing turnover tax at 0.3 percent instead of 0.6 percent, and imposing duty on import of rod for construction work.
The association leaders said although locally produced high quality rod is now being used in construction of the mega projects like Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant and Padma Bridge ones, some of the projects like Meghna and Gumati bridges are using imported rod paying no duty on their imports.
This has been stemming the growth of the local industries and they lag behind in competition with foreign products, they said.