Cabinet clears Companies Act

The cabinet has decided in principle to approve the draft Companies Act, keeping the provision, which would allow sole proprietorship entities to be registered companies.
However, it has asked the authorities to review a few clauses where the draft law originally proposed eliminating the need for high court approvals for various administrative procedures.
The draft law received the 'go ahead' during a cabinet meeting held at the Secretariat on Monday. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina chaired the weekly meeting.
The draft law, among other things, has also made provisions for increased digitisation of company formation process.
"Such provisions would ease and expedite the process of forming a company in the country," commerce ministry's additional secretary Obaidul Azam said.
The new law will make way for thousands of sole proprietorships to get registered as companies.
"This would enable numerous single ownership business entities to come under tax net as well as formal auditing scheme," Mr. Azam said.
"This would enhance the culture of transparency in business activities and would also increase the government revenue from sole proprietorship," he added.
Insiders noted that the new provision would make it easier for the small businesses to get loans from banks.
The draft law will now be sent to the commerce ministry for reviewing the observations coming from the cabinet.
Subsequently, it would be sent to the Ministry of Law for vetting, officials said.
Cabinet Secretary Mohammad Shafiul Alam said the cabinet also gave the final approval to the draft of "The Bangladesh Film and Television Institute (Amendment) Law, 2018," aimed at further flourishing mass media like film and television.
He said in the previous definition, film means celluloid, analogue, digital or it made in other medium. But, in the proposed law, the term "analogue" has been dropped from the definition of the film, he said.
The cabinet secretary said the draft law proposed to reduce the number of members of the governing body of the institute to four to six from existing five to seven.
Of them, a teacher of the institute and a filmmaker would be nominated by the government to ensure involvement of teachers of the institute and eminent personalities related to the film industry.
A "media personality" instead of a "journalist" to be nominated by the government will also be a member of the governing council, Alam said.
Besides, he said, a representative of the mass media instead of private media to be appointed by the government will also be a member of the governing council of the institute.
About the tenure of the governing council of the institute, the cabinet secretary said the council members will be appointed for a two-year term instead of three years of the existing law.
Meanwhile, the cabinet also gave a nod to a proposal for celebrating December 12 as the "Digital Bangladesh Day" instead of the "National Information & Communication Technology Day".
At the outset of the meeting, Agriculture Minister Begum Matia Chowdhury handed over a photograph on a 200-year-old floating "Rice Haat" to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
The photograph collected by Matia Chowdhury is a floating "Haat of Rice" in the Sandhya River at Banaripara of Barishal and it is said to be the largest "Rice Haat" in the region.

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