Prices of ice-cream, milk powder, sugar may rise

The prices of ice-cream, milk powder and sugar may go up as a five per cent supplementary duty has been proposed on ice-cream, five per cent increased supplementary duty on milk powder and 10 per cent more regulatory duty on sugar.

Finance minister AHM Mustafa Kamal announced the duty while presenting the national budget for the 2019-20 fiscal in parliament.

According to his budget speech, “At present, milk powder is importable on a concessionary Customs Duty (CD) rate which is 5%. To protect the local dairy industry, I propose to increase this 5% CD to 10% on milk powder import.”

In his speech, the finance minister also said, “I propose to increase the existing specific duty from Tk. 2000.00/MT to Tk. 3000.00/MT on import of raw sugar. For refined sugar the specific duty will be increased from Tk. 4,500.00/MT to Tk. 6,000.00/MT. Regulatory duty will be 30% instead of 20% for both refined and raw sugar import.”