Staff Reporter :
The Bangladesh Restaurant Owners Association (BROA) urged the government to allow imports of chicken, beef and mutton to cope with the commodity price hikes.
It also demanded effective market management to control the soaring prices of most products, including fish, meat, eggs, potatoes and onions, in recent times.
During a press conference held at the Police Convention Center in the capital on Saturday, the association leaders proposed reduction of the tax rate along with tax exemption to sustain the restaurant sector.
Speaking at the event, the BROA Secretary General Imran Hasan said, “Inflation has been rising at a rate of more than 8 per cent over the past few months, which is reducing the purchasing power of the people.
This is affecting the restaurant sector and the daily sales of most restaurants have come down to a great extent.”
“Around 25 per cent-30 per cent sales have been dropped in restaurant sector for soaring commodity prices,” he added.
“Under the circumstance, the government must control the existing syndicate in the market of daily commodities and will have to take initiative to reduce the price of goods by giving duty exemption,” Imran said.
“At the same time, we are demanding distribution of daily commodities at subsidized prices to the restaurant sector through Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB),” he added.
The BROA secretary general further said. “Arbitrary taxes are being levied along with VAT in the budget for the current fiscal year.
We want 0.5 per cent of the daily sales to be collected with VAT as tax. We also want to pay it at the end of the month.”
The leaders of the organization said that most of the restaurants are not using electronic fiscal devices (EFDs) provided by the National Board of Revenue (NBR). In such a situation, EFD user restaurants are suffering business losses.
They demanded that EFD machines be set up at all the restaurants. Otherwise, measures to collect VAT will fail.
The country has around 60,000 restaurants employing around 30 lakh people, according to the BROA.
Rising commodity prices have squeezed profit margins for most eateries in the capital, both expensive and budget friendly ones, as the restaurateurs are not able to adjusting their food price to match the rising costs.
At the 35th meeting of the executive committee of the BROA, Osman Gani and Imran Hasan were re-elected as President and Secretary General respectively of the BROA.
