Bangladesh Bank has reminded banks to transfer 0.03% of garment export receipts to the apparel worker’s welfare fund. The directive came following failure of most banks to deposit the amount cut by them from RMG export receipts. Banks have been asked to transfer 0.03% of export proceeds of hundred percent export-oriented garment industries to the central fund formed for the ready-made garment sector, said a circular Bangladesh Bank issued yesterday. The deducted fund will be deposited at the central fund account with the Ramna corporate branch of Sonali Bank, said the circular. Though the instruction was issued on June 12 this year, no banks except those related with 100% export-oriented apparel industries were complying with it. Banks were supposed to send a statement in this regard to the central fund management board and other related authorities, but some banks were not following the instruction. As a result it was being difficult to confirm the deduction form the certain export proceeds, said the circular. According to the circular, a total of over Tk72 lakh have been deposited at the central fund from July 17 to August 1 this year. Trust Bank, Islami Bank, BASIC Bank, National Bank, Jamuna Bank, Eastern Bank, Janata Bank, IFIC bank, Standard Bank and City Bank sent the statement about the fund deduction to the respective authorities regularly. Though HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank, Citibank NA, BRAC Bank, Dhaka Bank, UCB and Sonali Bank settled significant amount of export proceeds, but they did not send statement in this regard to the authorities, according to the circular. It said the ready-made garments worth around Tk22,000 crore have been exported in June this year. As per the export proceeds, Tk6 crore would have been deposited at the central fund if 0.03% had been deducted. In this circumstances, the central bank mandated the deduction of 0.03% of export proceeds by respective banks.
