Tariff on rice, oil, sugar and dates decrease

Tariff on the import of rice, oil, sugar and dates has been decreased. The National Board of Revenue (NBR) announced this through different notifications Thursday.

Earlier, the commerce ministry requested the NBR to reduce the duty rates for the products.

According to the NBR notifications, the duty for import of non-boiled and parboiled rice has been completely withdrawn while the regulatory duty of the products has been decreased to 5 per cent from existing 25 per cent.

The importers could avail the facilities until 15 May. But for this they will require a written order from a food ministry official equivalent to a joint secretary, said the notification.

Another notification said the VAT at the production and trading level for palm oil refined in the country have completely been withdrawn. The traders will get the facility until 15 April.

Apart from this, the VAT for import of refined and unrefined soybean and palm oil has been fixed at 10 per cent instead of existing 15 per cent. This will be in place until 15 April.

Meanwhile, the import duty for dates has been curtailed by 10 per cent before the Ramadan. The current duty is 25 per cent which will be 15 per cent until 30 March.

The import duty for refined and unrefined sugar has also been lowered. The previous amount of import duty for unrefined was Tk 1,500 per tonnes of sugar which has been reduced to Tk 1,000. The amount of duty for import of refined sugar has been reduced from Tk 3,000 to Tk 2,000.

The NBR notification said the facility will be effective immediately and remain in place until 31 March.

The notifications, signed by NBR chairman Abu Hena Md. Rahmatul Muneem, was published on 7 February but the media only learnt of this today, 8 February.

The NBR officials said the orders have already been made effective.