Bangladesh withdraws duty on sugar import to stabilise local market

Dhaka: Bangladesh’s National Board of Revenue (NBR) withdrew import duty on both raw and refined sugar in order to enable consumers to get the sweetener at reduced rates.

In a notification, NBR withdrew a 3,000 taka (about $28) specific duty on the import of raw sugar and 6,000 taka duty on refined sugar per tonne with immediate effect.

Apart from this, the NBR reduced the regulatory duty on the import of sugar to 25 per cent from 30 per cent.

The reduced import benefit, which reportedly comes following a proposal from the commerce ministry to bring down the prices of sugar from its current record level of up to 120 takas per kg, will remain effective until May 30 this year.

The overall import cost of raw and refined sugar is expected to decline by 6,500 takas and 9,000 takas per tonne respectively following the fresh duty waver and reduction measures, according to an estimate by the NBR. ($1 equals about 106 takas)