Local car manufacturers and assemblers yesterday urged the government to waive all duties and taxes on imports of automobile spare parts in the final budget for 2020-2021 financial year.
The Bangladesh Automobiles Assemblers and Manufacturers Association (BAAMA) made the demand at a virtual press conference on Tuesday.
The association leaders said if the government acted as per their demands, locally manufactured vehicles would be cheaper and affordable.
BAAMA President and Nitol-Niloy Group Chairman Abdul Matlub Ahmed said, " We want the duty waiver facility for the sake of people in the current tough economic year".
He also said, “We can open many vehicle fitness testing facilities across the country which the government cannot do with their limited resources.”
The association also called for revisiting the policy on the registration of light trucks as comparatively smaller pickup vans.
The immediate past BAAMA president and Runner Group Chairman Hafizur Rahman Khan said the country’s automobile industry had suffered sales loss of at least Tk20,000 crore and operating loss of Tk2000 crore a month due to the pandemic.
Abdul Matlub Ahmed hailed the government for launching the registration of electric cars and sought state support so that the popularity of the green vehicles rose.
“It will be tough for us to compete with decades-old fuel- run car industries across the world, as we have a bigger chance to adopt new technology in manufacturing electric vehicles,” he said.
The association’s Vice President and Ifad Auto’s Managing Director Taskeen Ahmed expressed his hope that within the second half of next year the industry would recover from the ongoing business slowdown.
Sohana Rouf Chowdhury, Managing Director of Rangs Group and BAAMA joint secretary emphasized on modern body building of buses to ensure more value addition.
She also said that educational institutes including schools should have student buses for establishing a disciplined and safer road.
