Bangladesh
Ramadan Duty on rice, oil, sugar and dates reduced
Dhaka, Feb 9: Duty rates on rice, oil, sugar and dates have been reduced ahead of the holy month of Ramadan.
On Thursday, the National Board of Revenue (NBR) in a separate notification announced the reduction of various levels of duty on these products. A request was made to the NBR from the Ministry of Commerce to reduce the duty of these products before Ramadan. In view of that, NBR has announced to reduce the duty-tax of these products.
As per notification of NBR, import duty on import of parboiled and uncooked rice has been fully withdrawn. At the same time, the regulatory duty on the import of parboiled and parboiled rice has been reduced from 25 percent to 5 percent. Rice importers will get this benefit till May 15. However, to get this benefit, a written approval of an official of the rank of joint secretary of the Ministry of Food will be required against each shipment of imports.
In the case of oil, Value Added Tax or VAT has been completely removed at the production and trading level of refined soybean and palm oil in the country. That is, the companies and traders associated with this business will not have to pay VAT for the time being at the production and business level of refined soybean and palm oil in the country. But they will get this benefit till April 15. Apart from this, import level VAT has been reduced to 10 percent in case of import of refined and unrefined soybean oil and palm oil from abroad. VAT has been reduced by 5 percent on imports of soybeans and palm oil. Importers will get this facility till April 15.
Meanwhile, the import duty has been reduced by 10 percent in the import of dates, one of the accessories of fasting. Currently, the import duty on import of dates is 25 percent. It has been reduced to 15 percent in view of Ramadan. Date importers will get this benefit of 10 percent less import duty till March 30. Apart from this, the import duty has been reduced on the import of both refined and unrefined sugar. The import duty on the import of unrefined sugar has been reduced to Tk 1,000 per metric ton.
