Local manufacturers and assemblers of compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs are facing a stiff competition with the importers for lack of policy support to the testing and certification regulatory body concerned and poor surveillance, industry insiders said.
They said the government's apathy to include CFL bulbs in the items list of import policy, importers can easily ignore the provision of obtaining testing certificates of their goods from the authority before bringing products into the country, and thus low-grade lamps have flooded the local market.
Besides, poor surveillance by the testing and certification regulatory body concerned - BSTI - and inadequate knowledge of users over quality and threats of using substandard lamps are also largely responsible for the situation, they added.
"Because of our market reputation, we are using costly tri-phosphor light in our lamps. On the other hand, almost all the imported CFL bulbs are made of low-cost halo-phosphor, which makes us less competitive in the market," chief operating officer of Energy Electronics Ltd Ahmed S Anwar told the FE.
According to him, using tri-phosphor makes CFL bulbs environment-friendly and brighter, and gives higher lifetime. But it increases their price, much higher than that of low-priced halo-phosphor, which is used in almost all the imported bulbs. Use of such bulbs is harmful for health and makes local companies less competitive in the market.
"Besides, importers of such low quality bulbs rarely care about the bad impacts of using other lower quality ingredients in their imported bulbs only for price factor."
"Interestingly, having knowledge about the bad impact of using these bulbs, BSTI is not taking any realistic action against the importers. If the testing and certification authority becomes active, then a healthy competition can be ensured," he also said.
"Proper use of CFL bulbs can contribute a lot to the national economy by saving a significant amount of electricity every year. So the government should look into the matter."
He also urged the government either to increase import duty or provide incentive to the local companies to sustain in the business.
Awlad Hossain, general manager of 'Super Star', said if the government does not take immediate steps to prevent import of low quality CFL bulbs, the local companies might not be able to sustain in the market in the long run.
"Besides, importers also quote under invoice of their goods to dodge the government from revenue collection," he added.
He urged the government to set at least a base price of imported bulbs to prevent under invoicing while.
However, BSTI director general Iqramul Haque said as the item is not yet included in the item list of import policy, they cannot prevent entering low quality imported bulbs in the country.
"Importers of CFL bulbs are not bound to take quality certificates from us. So they can easily release their goods from the port without testing."
"We have conducted many drives against marketing of substandard quality bulbs, and seized a good number of such items. But still it is inadequate than required. For lack of sufficient manpower BSTI cannot do much in this regard," he informed.
However, no importer wanted to make comment on the issue.
According to industry people, the annual market size of CFL bulbs is around 40 million pieces with a growth rate of nearly 20 per cent.
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