Prices of junk food to go up as Muhith proposes new SD

Prices of fast food known as ‘junk food’ will go up as the finance minister has proposed to impose 10 percent supplementary duty or SD considering health risks.

AMA Muhith in his budget speech on Thursday said he had earlier in August in parliament committed to impose additional taxes on fast food considering the health risk of future generations.

“For this reason, I am proposing to impose 10 percent supplementary duty at local supply stage on fast food in addition to applicable 15 percent VAT,” he said.

However, Akku Chowdhury, chief executive of Transcom Foods, the Bangladesh franchisee of Pizza Hut and KFC, told bdnews24.com they would try to adopt a policy so that their products do not go up suddenly.

“We are a genuine business group. We’ll not do anything that can hurt our consumers. So we’ll try to adopt a policy so that the prices do not go up suddenly."

He said he would work out on how production costs can be cut to offset the new duty.