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Tofail's directive for BCIC

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November 8, 2000 

Dhaka (UNB)- Industries Minister Tofail Ahmed today directed the management of BCIC enterprises to raise their productivity skills to make them viable coming out of staggering losses.

"Loss goes higher if KNM operates and lesser when it closes production," he said, pointing to a grim state of productivity levels of state-run industries.

He however said despite losses, BCIC units pay 100 per cent taxes to the government unlike many private-sector industries.

The minister was speaking at the inaugural session of a daylong workshop on improving productivity in BCIC units, jointly organised by BCIC and National Productivity Organisation.

Industries Secretary Al Amin Chowdhury, Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation (BCIC) chairman M Anwarul Huq and NPO director Shahidul Huq also spoke.

Tofail said industrial productivity must be raised to optimum levels to achieve 25 per cent contribution of manufacturing sector to GDP, a target set in the fifth Five-year Plan.

He mentioned various steps taken by the government for BMRE of some BCIC units, including Khulna Newsprint Mill, Karnaphuli Paper Mill and Ghorashal Fertiliser Factory.

The Industries Minister asked the BCIC authorities to take initiatives to maximise the production capacity of its six fertiliser factories and convert those to producing granular fertiliser, which will be the farmers' future choice for better farm productivity.

He thanked the management of BCIC and fertiliser factories for helping the government reach fertiliser at fair price to the doorsteps of farmers for the last for years.

The minister recalled the fertiliser crisis in BNP period that claimed life of some farmers and said BNP government reduced official price of fertiliser only to benefit the party-assigned dealers, not the farmers. Rather BCIC that runs six fertiliser factories lost Tk 1000 per ton.

The present government set the fertiliser price at Tk 4800 per ton to support BCIC, but farmers are getting fertiliser at the same rate.

"We kept fertiliser prices unchanged even after gas price increased, which will cost BCIC additional Tk 165 crore annually," Tofail said about the ventures under his ministry. Tofail cited drastic trade liberalisation in early '90s and massive reduction of tariffs by previous BNP government even before WTO came into being as the causes of gradual decline of productivity in domestic industries.

Abrupt opening of a floodgate of imported goods broke the backbone of the country's nascent domestic industries, he noted.

Local industrialists were discouraged as their products failed to compete with low-cost imported ones, leading to the waning of industrial productivity.

He criticised the BNP government for bringing down maximum tariffs from 350 per cent to 50 per cent "to make Bangladesh a market of Indian goods."

India, also a member of WTO, did not liberalise its trade and reduce duties, although Bangladesh did it much earlier, he regretted.

The minister referred to the present government's "hectic" efforts to get access to Indian market and making India agree to lower tariff and non-tariff barriers for quite a large number of items.