NBR earns 29pc customs duty from top 10 items

Al Amin :
The National Board of Revenue (NBR) earned Tk 9,457 crore or around 29 per cent of total customs duty from ten imported goods in first four months (July-October) of the current fiscal year amid the slowed economic activities.

The revenue earnings have increased from the ten items, mostly internal consuming goods, during the period as the government has imposed restrictions on importing luxury products due to the dollar crunch, NBR officials said.

The items are furnace oil or diesel, sugar, clinker, palm oil, bitumen, fossil fuel, stone, betel nut, steel sheet and coal, according to NBR sources.

They said imports of the items have also increased to meet the local demands during the aforesaid period compared to the same time of last fiscal year.

NBR collected Tk 32,668 crore from the customs wing during the July-October period of the current fiscal year, according to a provisional data of the revenue board.

Of the amount, Tk9,457 crores were collected from the ten items.

The NBR collected Tk7,931 crore from the items during the corresponding period of last fiscal year.

The data also showed that the customs department earned Tk 1,705 crore, the highest amount of duty, from the imports of 1,196,513 tonnes of high speed diesel during the period.

Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC), a state-owned sector organization, imports diesel and furnace oil and other petroleum products in the country at the government level. Apart from this, several private sector companies also import large quantities of furnace oil as fuel for power plants.

The second highest duty was collected from sugar as the revenue board earned Tk1,678 crores from the imports of the key essential consuming good and followed by Tk 1,185 crore from the imports of clinker used in cement making.

On the other hand, the revenue board earned Tk835 crores as duty from the imports of palm oil, a key-cooking item, during the four-month period, according to the provisional data.

The NBR also collected Tk776 crore as duty from the import of 377,431 tonnes of bitumen during the period.

Due to the increasing production capacity of thermal power plants in the country, 2,257,020 tonnes more coal have been imported compared to the same period of the last financial year.

As a result, the duty collected from fossil fuel products was Tk 584 crore during the mentioned period.

Import of stone has also increased by 82 per cent and the total duty collected from the product was Tk551 crore, which is Tk82 crore more than the same period of last fiscal year.

Betel nut is at the ninth place in this list and a total of 16,333 tonnes of betel nut has been imported.

Against this, the revenue collected was Tk469 crore. In the same period of the previous year, the revenue collected was Tk117 crores.