The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission has drafted a set of instructions on issuing registration certificates for local assembling and manufacturing of telecommunication service-related equipment other than mobile phone handsets.
The registration certificate issuance process for local assembling and manufacturing of mobile phone handsets has already been enacted by the commission.
The scope for manufacturing and assembling of the equipment in the country would also attract foreign investments along with creating job opportunity.
As per the instructions issued on Monday, the commission would issue two types of certificates — ‘A’ and ‘B’ — for assembling, manufacturing and setting up factory for making the products for local and international markets.
Category ‘A’ entities will have to set up testing laboratories while it would not be a requirement for the entities to be certified as category ‘B’.
However, having contract with any ‘A’ category certificate-holding entity would be a must for the category ‘B’ entity for the testing quality of the equipment which would be manufactured in the category ‘B’ entities.
The commission in its draft instructions proposed Tk 15 lakh and Tk 10 lakh as enlistment fee for category ‘A’ and category ‘B’ entities respectively while the certificate renewal fee has been set at Tk 7.5 lakh and Tk 5 lakh for category ‘A’ and ‘B’ entities.
The annual fee has been set at Tk 2.5 lakh for both categories and they would enjoy a five-year exemption from paying annual fee.
With a view to encouraging technological production, the government has been providing a huge tax break for the firms located in hi-tech parks.
The entities located in the country’s hi-tech parks are waived from paying any income tax in the first seven years of their operations.
Such entities would enjoy 70 per cent tax waiver for three years after the seven-year tax holiday.
Since the issuance of a huge tax break for the mobile handset assembling in the budget for the fiscal year 2017-2018, the telecom regulator formulated policy to issue licence for the assembling of mobile phone handsets.
The BTRC has so far granted registration to 11 entities to assemble and manufacture handsets in the country.
Of them, 10 entities have already started assembling and manufacturing handsets in the country.
In FY20, total 1.5 crore mobile handsets were assembled locally against 80 lakh handsets in FY19.
Source: https://www.newagebd.net/article/123792/btrc-to-issue-licence-to-assemble-telecom-equipment-locally