Exporters of rejected frozen foods face double trouble at local ports

FE Team | Published: November 07, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

Doulot Akter Mala
Country's frozen food exporters have been facing an uphill task of taking delivery of consignments, sent back by importers for various reasons, from local ports due to complex procedures.
The customs authorities of the ports often consider those consignments as imported and charge duty on those.
But exporters claim that there is no provision for back-to-back letters of credit (L/Cs) as the agro-based industry is dependent on perishable raw materials.
They sought customs departments' cooperation in expediting the release of such sent-back consignments from the ports.
Bangladesh Frozen Foods Exporters Association (BFFEA) Tuesday met with the chairman of the National Board of Revenue (NBR) and placed a proposal in this connection.
As the importers have paid for all of the sent-back consignments, they want replacement of the consignments keeping the same weight, size and price.
The exporters usually re-export the consignments adopting different procedures that cause 20 to 25 per cent re-processing losses.
But, sometimes exporters fail to re-export such consignments due to procedural complexities of the customs department.
In the proposal, the BFFEA demanded speeding up the release of the sent back consignments by at least 2/3 days without duty.
The BFFEA has also requested the NBR to consider 0.25 per cent turnover tax as a final settlement for the export-oriented industry.
BFFEA president Kazi Belayet Hossain made a plea to consider those proposals following a significant decline in export earnings from frozen foods in the first three months of the current fiscal.