Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Car importers worry

STRANDED CARS AT MONGLA PORT Barvida demands Tk2 lakh duty slab to release each of vehicles

The spotlight today turns to Mongla port where businesses are impeded due to bureaucratic government processes. Some 2,079 reconditioned cars remain stranded due to complexities in customs valuation and unauthorized import of more than five year old cars. Of them, imported between 2009 and 2013, a 1000 cars have been asked to be fixed a duty of Tk 2 lakh each, for their expedited release into the market. In addition to this, release also depends on meeting vehicle demand. The alternative was a counter-proposal to depreciate the cars at 95%, suggested by the Bangladesh Reconditioned Vehicle Importers & Dealers Association.

Aside the 1000, 512 units imported as five-years-old or not considering import policy, was requested by the association to provide legal clearance from the government. The rest of the units were not released due to the recent political unrest and now was asked to make clearance procedures.

Previously the government had asked for all legal documents for all these units and instigated to hand them over to the Bangladesh Police for reinforcing their team, since these cars were not being cleared. Protests sprang out from importers and they swiftly created these proposals.

This provides another example of business processes in Bangladesh and their legal procedures. The time span of each procedure is obviously less than optimum. This is true for many other sectors of the economy. That we have recently slipped in rankings of Doing Business, is not a hugely surprising scenario; despite the larger business environment, Bangladeshi government is targeting its Middle Income status within the near future. Progresses are not unseen in a lot of other sectors, however the disruptions in technical tweakings for attaining efficiency, encompasses a similar scenario on most businesses in the country. This ultimately is reflected on to weak and less competitive Doing Business rankings.

No comments:

Post a Comment