DCCI plea to invest revenue, savings at banks at lower rates

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Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith seen with the leaders of the DCCI at his secretariat office in the city Thursday. President Sabur Khan, Senior Vice President Nessar Maksud Khan, Vice President Absar Karim Chowdhury and directors of DCCI were prese

FE Report Business leaders Thursday proposed the government to invest revenue earnings and government savings at different commercial banks at lower interest rate to bring down lending rate under single-digit. Both the government and the business community initiated many steps to bring down the bank interest rate under single-digit. But those steps failed due to lack of effective interventions by the government, said leaders of the Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI) while they met Finance Minister A M A Muhith at his office. The DCCI has undertaken an initiative to create 2,000 new entrepreneurs in the country. As part of the plan the chamber will organise a conference in October, DCCI President Md. Sabur Khan read out from a written statement during the meeting. The chamber also urged the government to formulate a policy, so that businessmen can create venture capital and help fresh entrepreneurs. "Financing is a major hurdle in creating new entrepreneurship in the country. Venture capital is a very easy and suitable solution for the new entrepreneurs," he said. The DCCI leaders suggested the government to expand tax-net instead of increasing rate of tax. "Only 1.4 million people out of total 160 million pay taxes to the government, which is frustrating." The organisation also suggested immediate implementation of the Dhaka Customs House automation. "Many of the steps have been completed in making the customs house automated. The government needs to take immediate measures to complete the automation process," the DCCI president said. They requested the government to withdraw tax on settlement of local letters of credit (LCs). Such tax only discourages the businessmen to avoid formal channel in their transactions. The DCCI leaders called the government finance minister to take steps to make the BCIM (Bangladesh, China, Myanmar, India) forum effective, so that the country can easily tap benefit by exporting products to the regional market of 2.7 billion people. Sabur Khan, however, expressed concern that many of the potential foreign investors are cancelling their scheduled visits to Bangladesh due to the recent political turmoil. If the political stability is not returned, foreigners will not come to invest in the country. As a result, the rate of local investment will also reduce significantly, and creation of new entrepreneurship will be thwarted, he said. "The chambers consider that such violent and conflicting politics will pose serious threat to the business and future development of the country," Sabur Khan added.