Bangladesh’s National Budget for 2021-22 (July 2021-June 2022) was presented by Minister of Finance, A H M Mustafa Kamal, in Parliament on 3 June. During his speech, the minister acknowledged that cement, iron and iron products are the critical components of infrastructural development. Therefore, if tax incentive is provided to these industries engaged in producing these items, development of physical infrastructure will be easy and cost-effective.
He proposed reducing the tax rate on the import of raw materials related to cement production from three to two per cent. Likewise, he reduced the tax deduction rate at source on supply of cement, iron and iron products from three to two per cent.
The minister expressed hope that these measures will help these industries flourish and enable them to make a positive contribution to the country's infrastructural development.
In addition, the finance minister cut corporate tax rates by 2.5 percentage points to 30 per cent for the listed companies and 32.5 per cent for the non-listed ones.
As expected, the mega projects, whose completion are expected to raise Bangladesh's GDP by as much as four per cent, received about 48 per cent more allocation in the upcoming fiscal year, as part of the government's push to ensure their timely implementation.
Seven of the eight mega projects – Padma bridge, Dhaka mass rapid transit line-6 (Metro Rail), Chattogram-Cox's Bazar rail link, Rooppur nuclear power plant, Matarbari 1,200MW coal-fired power plant and the Payra deep seaport – will receive BDT370bn (US$4.36bn) in FY21-22, in contrast to BDT254bn in FY20-21.
