The cabinet committee on public purchase has approved the Industrial Policy 2016 giving special focus on a list of high-priority industries and creative industries for next five years. At a meeting yesterday, the five-year policy formulated by the Ministry of Industries received the cabinet committee’s approval to replace the existing Industrial Policy 2010. Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed, alternative chairman of the committee, presided over the meeting held at the Cabinet Division office. “The Industrial Policy 2016 has been approved today (Wednesday) to replace the existing one in place since 2010. The new policy has listed some industries tagging as ‘high-priority’ while the current one entailed a list of ‘priority industries’. The new policy also focuses on creative industries,” M Mustafizur Rahman, additional secretary of cabinet division, told journalists after the meeting. According to the new policy, the high priority industries are the sectors that create large-scale employment through speedy expansion and earn substantial sums of export earning. These industries will get priority in receiving government incentives for rapid development. Six sectors are included in the high-priority category: agriculture and food processing, garment, ICT and software, pharmaceuticals, leather and leather products, and jute and jute goods. The creative industries mean the sectors producing aesthetic and creative products by using artistic and innovative thinking and techniques or modern technology. These include architecture, art and antique, design, fashion design, film and video, interactive laser software, software, and computer and media programmes, according to the new policy. A new arrangement is underway to map out the creative industries across the country under fresh policy and the government is going to provide policy and institutional support for expansion of those industries. The priority sectors and sub-sectors will get timely and separate investment incentives, according to the new policy. Bangladesh Bank, National Board of Revenue, Board of Investment and other related agencies will take necessary steps. Particular investment incentives, incorporate subsidies and tax and duty rebate will be proposed for the areas falling behind economically and in industrialisation. Under the fresh policy, the sizes of industrial units will be redefined and a firm with an asset value of above Tk50 crore and having 300 employees will be considered as a large industrial unit. In the current policy, the figures are Tk30 crore and 250 employees respectively. But if a garment unit having a staff of more than 1,000 will fall under the big industry category, according to the new policy.
