Business

The National Board of Revenue has raised the supplementary duty on soft drinks to 25 per cent from the existing 15 per cent to check tax evasion by energy drink producers, officials of the NBR said. They said that energy drink makers were abusing the existing tax facility given to the soft drink sector. Currently, energy drinks ... Read more

Commerce minister Tofail Ahmed urged international brands and retailers to pay more for Bangladeshi apparel items as the costs of exporting garment products have gone up due to spike in wages for garment workers. He said the global buyers of Bangladeshi clothing though promised a lot to meet the needs of affected workers  caused by the ... Read more

Bangladesh’s export to India has stagnated as the country is failing to reap the benefit of duty-free market access due to lack of government effort and coordination, said economists in a dialogue on Tuesday. They said non-tariff barriers like certification and accreditation and cumbersome procedure and documentation put by India and local infrastructure crisis,

International Labour Organisation deputy director general Gilbert Fossoun Houngbo on Tuesday hoped that the garment sector of Bangladesh will go ahead taking lessons from the tragic Rana Plaza incident. In a day-long orientation programme on Freedom of Association for the officials of newly registered trade unions in the readymade garment sector held at a city hotel,

The Rana Plaza Coordination Committee, a body of representatives of global trade unions, retailers, government and factory owners, on Tuesday formally started distributing compensation from a fund of donors’ among families of deceased, injured workers and survivors of the building collapse. The number of total beneficiaries from the fund, which was created to

A year after the collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory building left more than 1,100 dead, Washington says it remains concerned about worker safety and rights in Bangladesh. In a briefing for journalists, a group of senior US officials said progress had been made getting the government in Dhaka to crack down on dangerous practices and ... Read more

The National Board of Revenue chairman Ghulam Hussain on Tuesday blasted the real estate and housing developers for committing undervaluation of prices of land and apartments during registration to evade taxes. The NBR chief also raised questions for not reducing the prices of land and apartments though realtors were getting huge tax break.

A National Board of Revenue committee on SIM replacement tax in its fresh final report last week maintained its claim for Tk 3,010.99 crore in tax from four mobile operators — Grameenphone, Robi, Banglalink and Airtel, said officials. The NBR has been demanding the amount in tax since early 2012 claiming that the operators had dodged ... Read more

Nitol Niloy Group and India’s largest two-wheeler maker Hero MotoCorp on Monday signed a joint venture agreement to set up a motor cycle plant in Bangladesh. The plant will go for full commercial production by the second quarter of the fiscal year of 2015-2016 with an annual production capacity of 1.5 lakh units.

China’s car market is just gearing up as the world’s largest, yet automakers are already eyeing the next big thing — the market for reselling them. Their eagerness to attract buyers in the world’s largest car market is on full display at the Beijing International Automotive Exhibition, which opened

The country’s payment system operators and payment system providers will have to procure licences from Bangladesh Bank to conduct their business operation, said officials of the central bank. Payment system operator (PSO) refers to an entity for operating a settlement system for payment activities between participants of which the principal participant must be a

Local entrepreneurs on Monday demanded that the National Board of Revenue should provide tax and duty benefits to local industries to protect them from uneven competition with imported finished goods. They also urged the revenue board to prevent under-invoicing and misdeclaration of products by the importers. At a pre-budget discussion, representatives

The government is likely to enhance the existing limits for spending development and non-development funds to procure goods and services by different ministries and agencies between 40 and 60 per cent. Officials of the finance ministry said that the decade-old guidelines on financial powers for development projects and state purchases are set to be revised for ... Read more

The Economic Relations Division has lowered the availability for foreign loans by US$ 420 million in the outgoing fiscal year because of slow utilisation of project aids. ERD officials said initial projection of US$ 3,370 million had been revised to US$ 2,950 million after the ministries and divisions could not improve implementation rate of projects funded ... Read more

The travel cost for each Malaysia bound worker has been further reduced to Tk 24,000, officials said Sunday. The recruitments would take place under government to government arrangements, they said. Thy said that 120 workers are due to leave for Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday and 124 others on Thursday by Biman paying the lowest ever fare per person. Bureau ... Read more

NBR has to collect Tk 56,584cr more in 4 months The National Board of Revenue in the first eight months of the current fiscal year collected only 54.73 per cent of the downsized revenue target set for the entire fiscal year as the growth in revenue collection remained slow, officials said. According to the latest data, ... Read more

Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission has decided to formulate a cost model to determine the pricing of different services of mobile telecom companies, said BTRC officials. They said BTRC would appoint a consultant soon for the cost modelling of the telcos. The voice service, short and multimedia massage service, video call service and

Say manufacturers need more money to improve workplace safety The country’s apparel sector leaders on Saturday criticised the global retailers for not increasing prices of the products to help the manufacturers improve workplace safety after the Rana Plaza tragedy. ‘Relocation and remediation are the two main challenges for the manufacturers to make the RMG industry safer ... Read more

Biman chairman Jamal Uddin Ahmed has said that it would not be possible to resume Dhaka-New York flight before next summer although immediate past CEO Kevin Steel had declared that the airlines would fly to America continent in summer this year. ‘It would not be wise to resume the flight before

The National Board of Revenue has withdrawn value-added tax on commission indenting agents get in foreign currencies from overseas companies, officials said. They said the revenue board had withdrawn 15 per cent VAT on the commission considering the indenting services as export of services.