Govt takes work plan to boost paper export

The government has taken a comprehensive work plan to increase the export of locally produced paper in a bid to salvage the country's 60 paper mills, involving Tk 700 billion investments. The total production capacity of local paper mills is 0.5 million tonnes against the annual demand for 0.2 million tonnes. The Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) has identified that 60 per cent of the production capacity of the domestic paper mills remained unutilised. On the other side, various local industries are importing paper to meet their demand. EPB recently held a meeting with all the paper mill owners to prepare a work plan for facilitating paper export and diversifying the country's export basket. Representatives of Basundhara Group, Meghna Paper Mills, Tanvir Paper Mills, Hossain Board Mills, Baijid Newsprint Mills, and Capital Paper and Pulp Industries along with senior officials of EPB attended the meeting. EPB vice chairman Jalal Ahmed said: "Potentiality of paper sector remained untapped. We have to pay due attention to the sector and take necessary measures to export paper. The huge domestic investment in the sector should be properly rewarded by promoting export." "We will give emphasis on production of same kind of paper that has been imported for local use. EPB will encourage local consumers and readymade garment (RMG) exporters to use locally produced paper," he said. Azizur Rahman Salim, general manager of Basundhara Group, said: "Newspaper industry has been importing duty-free paper at cheaper rate, as domestic paper mills cannot offer quality products at competitive prices." Local mills need the government's adequate support to produce paper at low cost by utilising their full capacity. Besides, the government has to provide cash subsidy against export of paper, and impose tariff barriers to save local paper industry, he added. Production cost of paper in the country is high, as the full capacity of the local mills remains unutilised. However, Bangladesh exports paper in a small scale to India, Nepal and Bhutan, industry insiders said. In the meeting, EPB has decided to investigate the factors for not using locally produced paper in the factories, preparing various products, according to the working paper of the meeting. EPB also decided to request National Board of Revenue (NBR) to take necessary measures for reducing import tax on raw materials used in paper sector, the working paper also said. Local paper mills import 80 per cent of their raw materials, including waste paper, pulp and chemicals. Importers have to pay various taxes on those raw materials, which escalates production cost of the local mills.