Local electronics assembling units on verge of extinction

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Jasim Uddin Haroon
The country's electronics assembling industry having a market size worth Tk 3.0 billion is facing closure mainly because of same tariffs for both finished products, and parts and equipment used by local assembling plants.
Currently, around 20 assembling units are in operation out of local 80 assembling units that existed earlier. The industry developed since early 1990s following government's favourable policies and it developed in a scattered way in the city and its peripheral areas.
"I have closed down my factory three years back when the government slapped same tariffs for built-in units and assembling parts," said Zahid Hossain, managing director of World Vision. "I closed down my factory with a huge bank loan."
Assemblers said the government in its national budget for 2003-04 slapped a similar tax damaging the potential industries.
Currently, import duty, supplementary duty and other duties account for 81 percent both for finished products and parts.
Assemblers claimed that local assembling of TVs and VCDs contributed to fall in the prices of the electronic goods by at least 50 per cent in the local market.
President of Bangladesh Television Manufacturers' Association Mohabbat Ullah said: "The industry is no more viable in the country."
Mohabbat, who is also the managing director of Nippon Industries, said the industry could make at least 40 per cent value addition employing a huge workforce, mostly women.
Mafizur Rahman, owner of Jacinth Electronics, told the FE that he also closed down his assembling factory due to the government's 'irrational' policy. He said, "the government does not want to develop the industry locally."
The assembling industries employed more than 10,000 employees directly.
He also said: " I am now doing trading of TVs and other electronics instead of assembling them."
Bangladesh imports around 600,000 units of colour TV apart from thousands of DVDs, VCDs and other electronics.
However, assemblers sought government policy support so that the industry could survive and tap its potentials.
They claimed that the industry also gave cheaper computer monitors through diversifying the technology.
"We will be able to reduce the prices of computer monitors if the government gives us policy support for the industry," Mohabbat added.