Government cuts tariffs on poultry, fisheries and agriculture equipment in FY23 budget

The government is going to cut duties on cattle feed, poultry industry and some agricultural machinery to ease meeting the nutritional needs of the country at a time when the prices of commodities are rising worldwide.

In the budget he presented for the fiscal year 2022-23 on Thursday, Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal suggested continuing the zero tariff rates and other concessions given in the past for the import of food items and miscellaneous items to ensure sustainable development of the fisheries, poultry and dairy sector.

But poultry entrepreneurs are far from impressed. They wanted deeper cuts considering the state of the international market.

“Wheat gluten is used for food preparation in the domestic poultry industry. At present there is 25 percent import duty on that product,” Kamal said.

“It has been proposed to reduce the import duty on that product from 25 percent to 15 percent in order to reduce the cost of production in the livestock industry and ensure the supply of protein to the consumers at low price.”

“Sugarcane molasses is a major ingredient for the production of cattle feed. I am proposing to reduce the import duty on these products from 15 percent to 10 percent to reduce the production cost of cattle feed,” he added.

Bangladesh Poultry Farm Protection National Council General Secretary Khandaker Md Mohsin said the tariff cut in the proposed budget is too little considering how the production cost in poultry industry is soaring in the global market.

“We proposed lifting all tariffs from poultry-related products for the next three months or until the global market stabilises.”

In the budget session, Kamal said, “It has been proposed to expand the concession facility for three new materials (test kits for use in poultry, molasses feed grade and cane molasses feed grade) used in livestock sector.

“I also propose to expand the concessional facility by including two new agricultural machinery (combined Harvester-Threshers and other threshing machinery) in the existing SRO for that sector.”