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Telephone policy

1 June 2005, 18:00 PM
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
By A Abad Dhaka
1 June 2005, 18:00 PM
The government is losing a huge amount of import duties and taxes on import of mobile cell phones, due to large-scale smuggling (mostly through passengers' personal baggage). Used and old sets are being dumped into Bangladesh. The retail dealers do not display the prices in the showcases. Why? No pre-sale literature on the numerous models are available in the shops. Then how to choose a set? Why the official monitoring is not buyer-friendly?

ICT imports can no longer be classified as luxury items, for obvious reasons. By reducing the duty on mobile phones and peripherals, the government can earn more. Smuggling is directly proportional to demand. If import levies are lower, smuggling would decrease.

SKD kits may be imported for local assembly, thereby reducing the retail prices further, discouraging the import of completely assembled sets. Now the factories are shifting to the developing countries; and GoB is aware of the incentives to offer through the EPZ.

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The mobile phone market is now highly competitive. This is the time to flood the market with cheaper sets. Now small solar energy power kits are available for village homes, allowing recharging of mobile batteries in the rural areas. The fixed line telephone has also been opened to the private sector. Hence the levies should come down earn more with lower taxes.