Don’t want incentive on export, reduce cost of business: Syed Nasim Manzur

Leading businessman and Apex Footwear managing director Syed Nasim Manzur has called the policymakers to reduce the cost of business instead of giving cash incentives or subsidies.

“Recently, cost of various utilities including gas and electricity has increased by 400 per cent and banks’ lending interest by 13 per cent. Freight cost per kilometre reached nearly the highest in the world. If this cost does not drop, we will not survive the competition in the coming days. As a result, we do not need incentive or subsidy, rather reduce the cost of doing business,” he said.

Syed Nasim Manzur said this while addressing a session of the 7th SANEM Annual Economists’ Conference (SAEC) organised by the private research organisation South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (SANEM) at Brac Centre Inn on Sunday.

World Bank's Bangladesh mission former lead economist Zahid Hussain presided over the session on “Challenges of Export Diversification and Structural Transformation in Bangladesh” while SANEM executive director Salim Raihan presented the keynote paper.

Mentioning that Bangladesh has potential on export, Syed Nasim Manzur said, “Global brands like Walmart and Nike moved to relocate their manufacturing facilities from China because manufacturing is getting difficult in that country, and we must make ourselves competent to catch that business. We must attract foreign investors.”

He stressed export diversification policy saying, “Customs in Vietnam requires filling-up a two page form to release raw materials while Bangladesh needs to fill up 12 pages, and we must ease this process.”