Bangladesh acts to boost exports
The Bangladesh government has announced a comprehensive cash incentive package for the export sector along with readjusted interest rates for loans for exporters in order to arrest declining trend in export. The country's export earnings fell by around US$750 million or 15.68 per cent from the $4780 million target during the July-February period of the current fiscal year.
The government decided to cut the existing cash incentive scheme for the textile sector, but enhanced it for the leather products. Cash incentives were also announced for frozen food, agricultural produces and agro products, bone dust, bicycle and light engineering products and handicrafts made of straw and sugarcane waste.
Bangladesh's finance minister M Saifur Rahman said that key features of the package include a 15-20% cash incentive for exports. The cash incentive for textiles has been cut to 15%, while interest for export credit has been lowered to 9%.. The cash incentives for the new export items range between 15% and 20% and will be effective from July 2002 for the next three years.
