The proposed budget for the fiscal year 2021-22 put forward a number of fiscal measures to boost local ICT and IT-enabled services including imposing duty on imported cellular handsets and concessionary facilities for import of computer accessories and raw materials.
In the proposed budget, the government has raised customs duty on imported handsets from existing 10 per cent to 25 per cent.
In his budget speech, Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal said, "I propose to make the existing concessions on raw materials of that industry more investment-friendly and rational for the expansion of cellular phone manufacturing, assembling and backward linkage industry."
"I also propose to increase tariff on import of feature phones to protect domestic industry. I propose to provide concessionary facilities for import of computer accessories and raw materials of ICT industry to protect the domestic computer/laptop and ICT product manufacturers."
At present, most of the mobile phones sold in the local market are either manufactured or assembled in the country.
"In this regard, I propose development of local mobile handset industries and Information Technology (IT) sectors: extension of existing VAT exemption facility on manufacturing and assembling of mobile phones for two more years," Mr Kamal said.
He also proposed VAT exemption on local manufacturing of printer, toner cartridge, inkjet cartridge, parts of computer printer, computer, laptop, AIO, desktop, notebook, notepad, tab, keyboard, mouse, barcode/QR scanner, RAM, PCBA/motherboard, power bank, router, network switch, network device/hub, speaker, sound system, ear phone, head phone, SSD/portable SSD, hard disk drive, pen drive, micro SD card, flash memory card, CCTV, monitor (not exceeding 22 inches), projector, printed circuit board, e-writing pad, USB cable, data cable, digital watch, loaded PCB to support local manufacturing.
The minister said the present government is attaching highest importance to the ICT sector.
"The existing tax exemption provided to the ICT sector needs to be further expanded in order to take the government's vision of building a digital Bangladesh one step forward," he said in his speech.
"I propose to further expand the existing 22 ITES services enjoying tax exemption in this budget."
He said this will give impetus to the digital transformation process of Bangladesh and will make modern digital services easily available to the citizens at a low cost, and will also make a positive impact in materializing the dream of building a digital Bangladesh.
With these ends in view, "I propose to offer tax exemption facility to providers of cloud service, system integration, e-learning platform, e-book publications, mobile application development service and IT freelancing until 2024."
In addition, the finance minister said, "I propose to offer tax exemption, subject to certain conditions, for ten years on production of some selective IT hardware if manufactured in Bangladesh."
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