Staff Reporter:
The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has reduced customs duty on mobile phone imports by 60 per-cent aiming to keep handset prices within the purchasing capacity of general consumers.
According to a press release yesterday, the NBR has issued a notification lowering customs duty on im-ported mobile phones from 25 percent to 10 percent. The decision was taken to make mobile phones more affordable and to expand access to digital services across the country.
To protect domestic mobile phone assembling industries from adverse competition, the NBR has also reduced customs duty on the import of components used by local assemblers from 10 percent to 5 per-cent through a separate notification. This represents a 50 percent reduction in existing import duty on such components.
As a result of the duty cuts, the price of each imported fully-built mobile phone valued above Tk 30,000 is expected to decrease by around Tk 5,500, while the price of each domestically assembled mobile phone in the same price category is expected to fall by approximately Tk 1,500.
The government expressed optimism that the significant reduction in duties on mobile phone imports and assembling components would help keep mobile phone prices affordable for the public and make digital services more accessible to citizens.
It also reaffirmed that efforts to keep mobile phone prices within the purchasing power of people will continue.
