Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) has suggested reinforcing duty drawback system instead of existing cash incentive one for importing raw materials from the global market. If the duty drawback system introduced, prices of Bangladeshi export commodities would be more competitive in the global market, opined the officials of EPB. The EPB has also recommended making the duty drawback system simpler and more transparent for the sake of the local exporters. Duty drawback system is a refund that can be obtained when an import fee has already been paid for a good, but the good is then subsequently exported. In order to obtain a duty drawback, a business does not have to have paid the import duty, nor do they have had to perform the product’s exportation, they only need to be assigned the drawback from those to whom it would typically be due. At a recently held meeting, EPB made a decision in favour of reinforcing the duty drawback facilities for raw material importers and also sought opinion from the finance division in this regard. Duty drawback scheme enables exporting companies to obtain a refund of Customs duty paid on imported goods where those goods will have undergone production, mixing, assembling, or packing and then exported to a foreign port. The meeting resolution signed by the EPB Director General-1 Marufa Sultana also revealed that there are complexities and time consuming factors in the pay back money from the duty drawback system. As per the EPB resolution, the government is going to introduce online duty drawback system to reduce the hassle of the local exporters specially automation in the Duty Exemption and Drawback Office (DEDO), which is an agency under the National Board of Revenue. The EPB meeting also discussed about online communication between the Duty Exemption and Drawback Office of the NBR but there are no online connection among the two bond commissionaires, Bangladesh Bank, BGMEA and BKMEA. According to the regulation, Bangladesh, being a small economy, must look at the export markets for rapid industrial development, and the country is well known for its fast growth in export trade over the last two decades. About 1.3 million (since 1972) exporters comprising small, medium and large-scale entrepreneurs have been contributing directly and indirectly to the growth further. And one of the key incentives provided by the government to exporters is duty drawback. “We do not bring back our deposit money under duty drawback system for importing raw materials and export the finished goods,” Bangladesh Exporter’s Association President Abdus Salam Murshedy told the Dhaka Tribune. Duty drawback system should be simplified which will be good for the local exporters, he further said. Murshidy suggested for online system for avoiding the complexity in the duty drawback system.
