The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has imposed addtional duty on 135 foreign products - from fruits to flowers - to discourage their imports and ease pressure on forex reserves.

The NBR notification stated that 20 per cent regulatory import duty has been slapped on over135 HS-coded products such as foreign fruits, foreign flowers, furniture and cosmetics effective from Monday.

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The much anticipated move is likely to discourage import of the expensive products and ease the pressure on foreign exchange reserves.                                                                        

The revenue authority said said Bangladesh is doing well in flower and fruit cultivation. The additional import duty will help flower and fruit growers get fair price.

The new regulatory duty applies to the following:

Flower and flower products: Any type of imported flowers, fresh and dried, imported flowers for making ornaments, various types of artificial flowers and tree saplings or tree branches.

Fruits include: Fresh or processed mango, banana, grape, fig, pineapple, avocado, guava, mangosteen or cabbage, lemon, watermelon, plum, apricot, cherry fruit, frozen or processed fruit seed and mixed fruit food.

Imported bamboo for furniture, parts, cane furniture and various imported materials for furniture. Also wooden furniture used in office, kitchen, bedroom, plastic furniture and various metal furniture.

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Cosmetics products include perfume, beauty and makeup preparation, tooth floss, tooth powder, preservative and after shave cosmetics, hair cosmetics etc.

At present, regulatory duty or RD is applicable on 3,408 products at the import stage. RD is applicable on these products from minimum 3 per cent to maximum 35 percent. This includes high tariffs on items classified as non-essential and luxury items.