As part of preparations for trade dialogue with the United States, the government is considering massive changes to its tariffs and duties.
In the budget speech of finance adviser Salehuddin Ahmed on Monday, he proposed to completely withdraw import duties on 110 products and reduce import duties on 65 products in response to the US reciprocal tariff policy.
The government also proposed to fully withdraw supplementary duties on 9 products, while those on 442 products are proposed to be reduced.
This will ease the tax burden on citizens and reduce anti-export bias, said the budget speech.
鈥楾he LDC graduation challenges along with the prolonged Russia-Ukraine war, instability in the Middle East, and, more recently, retaliatory tariffs on exports to the United States imposed by the Trump administration have created a context in which Bangladesh鈥簊 position on the existing tariff structure on import-export trade needs to be reassessed,鈥� said the finance adviser.
To this end, the government has proposed reorganising the existing six-tier customs duty structure by introducing a new tier at the rate of 3 per cent.聽
The proposal introduces a new 40 per cent supplementary duty rate, alongside the existing twelve-tier structure.
However, to benefit the citizens, it has proposed keeping the existing zero tariff rates unchanged 52 per cent for essential goods, major food items, fertilisers, seeds, life-saving medicines, cotton, and raw materials for certain industries.
According to the speech, advance tax for manufacturing sector on importing raw materials reduced to 2 per cent from existing 3 per cent.
However, the advance tax of commercial importer to hike to 7.5 per cent from existing 5 per cent.
Moreover, at the manufacturing level, the VAT on cotton yarn hiked to Tk聽5 per kg from existing Tk聽3 and the same rate has been also imposed on the manufacturing level of manmade fibre.
Moreover,聽to encourage environmentally friendly recycling industries, the withholding tax rate on the supply of raw materials to this industry has been reduced from 3 per cent to 1.5 per cent.