BCS President Subrata Sarkar commented that it is not logical to impose 15 percent VAT on imported laptops by mentioning that technology traders in the country have been assembling several products including PCs and printers in the country for a long time. And as a result of this decision, the price increase rather than the return; it is beyond the affordability of the buyers, he demanded to withdraw it in the next budget.
Arguing in favor of his claim, he said that assembling and marketing products under the name of his band is not manufacturing. Laptop manufacturing plants have not been successful in countries like India. Everyone imports the laptops in the market after doing their QC from the OEM factory. Now, I don’t think there is any justification for adding 15 percent VAT on laptop manufacturing in Bangladesh.
‘There is no printer manufacturing in Bangladesh which can be assembled. We are doing this from the beginning’ – added Subrata Sarkar.
He made these comments while speaking before the Iftar Mahfil held at the BCS Innovation Center on Sunday with media workers of information technology.
The BCS President said that the Bangladesh Computer Samity has submitted the warranty policy on consumer rights to ensure the after-sales service of the country’s information technology products to protect the rights of consumers. Similarly, the MRP policy was finalized in February this year to reduce the distance between consumers and sellers regarding prices. In a short time every IT product in the market will be equipped with MRP stickers.
BCS General Secretary Kamruzzaman Bhuiyan delivered the welcome address on the occasion. He said that, ICT belongs to everyone. But due to VAT-tax, the price of ICT products increased by 15 percent year-on-year.
While speaking as the special guest, the vice president of the organization Md. Rashed Ali Bhunya said that BCS will now hold regular meetings with information technology media workers.
In addition, Nazneen Nahar, President of Bangladesh ICT Journalist Forum (BIJF), the national organization of journalists in the information technology sector, said in her speech, the place where we are now in terms of technology inclusion, our hardware industry is very vulnerable, on the other hand encouraging. More work needs to be done in this difficult area; can we still make processors? Questions about our hardware manufacturing plant! So we will cooperate with BCS by providing the information of which hardware products Bangladesh is making. We want to research these issues and look for obstacles and ways to overcome them.
Similarly, President of Technology Media Guild Bangladesh (TMGB) Md, Kausar Uddin said, we think if we invest in ourselves, its return will come sometime. Therefore, BCS will consider whether we can conduct an orientation course for journalists to popularize our upcoming technology to the readers in order to increase our capacity.
At the end of the event, Bangladesh Computer Samity formally congratulated BIJF and TMGB executive committee members with flowers and urged them to work together.