Appeal to withdraw addl warehouse charge needs consideration

THE country’s apparel exporters have urged the government to withdraw the additional warehouse charge incurred on the imported goods at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka. The national flag carrier has doubled the warehouse charge at the Airport terminal, effective from January. The apparel exporters asked for reinstating of the warehouse charge at Tk 25 per unit of 50kg. The coronavirus outbreak had made the RMG factory owners unable to bear the increased charge, while the airline sector landed in a flat that needs to fly.
The RMG sector is struggling for survival and facing a liquidity crisis as global buyers are not making their payments on time due to the Covid-19 pandemic. RMG exporters claimed uncertainties hover in the sector as renowned buyers in European countries, the United States and China had become bankrupt and many buyers were cancelling or putting placed orders on hold amid the pandemic. Globally, the aviation industry is suffering a massive blow in the aftermath of the coronavirus outbreak as the number of air passengers tumbled. Biman Bangladesh Airlines as the state-owned enterprise has the opportunity to take off based on different fees.
The pandemic triggers an unprecedented economic recession, job loss, and income loss that have a profound impact on global apparel markets as well. Biman also incurred huge loss for cancelling many flights and a limited number of flight operations. The RMG sector while recovering from Corona impact, they need support for creating employment for poor that can inject money into the poor community and pull them out of poverty. And the Civil Aviation Sector is the complementary force of this strive and way of moving another wheel, migrant workers, of the economy forward. Both sectors should reach a consensus and win-win situation to support one another. The government can take effective policies and action to make a balance between two struggling sectors and revamp the economy.