The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) sought policy support in the budget to survive the Ukraine-Russia war.

BGMEA President SM Mannan Kochi said this while speaking at a post-budget press conference at the BGMEA Complex, Uttara on Saturday.

He said to impose a tax on capital machinery import at the economic zone by 1.0 percent, VAT increase from 5 percent to 15 on energy saving bulbs, bonds license free hike Tk50,000 to Tk1,00000, import duty raise from 5 percent to 10 percent on steel building construction materials would be affected the businesses.

The budget highlighted inflation as one of the major challenges in the budget speech several times, controlling inflation will be the biggest challenge in the next fiscal year, especially due to the decrease in foreign exchange reserves.

“Although some policy support has been proposed for this major sector of foreign exchange earnings, we need to deal with the current difficult situation. The original proposals were not reflected in the proposed budget,” he added.

Exports face challenges due to war and geo-political reasons and prices of export goods fell by 8 -18 percent, in these circumstances policy support is required for the industries.

Mannan said the garment sector expected policy support in the budget, reducing the source tax by 0.5 percent, VAT exemption on incentive and receiving services for industries, 7.5 VAT wastage disposal, and 15 percent VAT withdrawal on recycle fiver supply.

The budget raised taxes on various sectors related to manufacturing, which will contribute to increased production costs, the BGMEA President sought tax exemption in alternative ways to compete with global competitors of the RMG sector.

BTMEA President Muhammad Ali Khokon, Executive President BKMEA Muhammad Hatem, and senior leaders of BGMEA, BTMEA, and BKMEA were present in the press conference.