LABSA and SLES Manufacturing Association of Bangladesh in a statement on Monday said that Bangladesh had the capacity to produce 100 per cent of sodium laurel ether sulphate, one of the main ingredients of manufacturing handwash, shampoo and dish wash liquid.
There is also local capacity to produce 100 per cent of linear alkyle benzene sulphonic acid, which is one of the main raw materials for manufacturing detergent powder, soap and dish wash bar. Yet SLES is mostly imported from India and China and 50 per cent of LABSA requirement is imported from India, said the statement.
Five local companies 鈥� Rhymer Chemicals Ltd, Crescent Chemicals Ltd, United Sulpho Chemicals Ltd, Liberty Chemicals Ltd and Wata Chemicals Ltd 鈥� manufacture LABSA and SLES, and all of them are members of LABSA AND SLES Manufacturing Association of Bangladesh .
LSMAB has strongly voiced for government initiatives to protect local industry as local manufactures can produce the entire requirement of the country locally ensuring local value addition, the statement mentioned.
The excessive dependency on imports for both SLES and LABSA are mainly due to low customs duty to import these items, while there is 5 per cent CD to import raw materials of LABSA and SLES. Only 5 per cent gap in CD is not enough to protect local industry, which needs to be widened for protection of local industry, said the statement.
Mentioning that unnecessarily high import of LABSA and SLES is hindering higher capacity utilisation of local industries, the statement said that high import was causing drained out of hard-earned forex of the country.
鈥業t is also causing missed out opportunity of local value addition despite having available capacity to do so.鈥�
LSMAB has strongly reiterated that the government needs to protect the local industry by imposing higher customs duty on import as it has already done on certain sectors such as dairy, electronics, food products, beverage, FMCG products, basic textile chemicals, pharmaceuticals and others.
The local manufacturers can supply the entire requirement of the domestic industry 鈥� annual demand of LABSA is about 55,000mt and SLES is about 10,000 mt.
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