Star Business Report

Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS) has welcomed the new national budget, but it expressed its worries as the fiscal plan did not include the proposals placed by the association.

The government did not enlist broadband internet service and training on information technology as an Information Technology Enabled Service (ITES), which is a long-pending demand of the association.

“We proposed reducing the tariff on cyber security software, but the government did not say anything about it in the budget,” said BASIS President Syed Almas Kabir.

Tech-enabled services have been enjoying tax exemptions since 2008 and it will continue until 2024.

The government also added e-learning and e-books within the scope of ITES.

The software and information service providers wanted the tax exemption to be extended until 2030 to attract long-term investment for the sector, but nothing was there about it in finance minister’s budget speech on June 3.

Earlier, the association also had urged the government to allocate Tk 500 crore for the technical assistant project to brand Bangladesh globally as a technical assistance (TA) provider nation.

It had also suggested the government to set aside a Tk 300 crore fund from where women entrepreneurs can take loans at 2 per cent interest.

However, the new budget did not explicitly mention the TA project or the creation of women IT entrepreneurs, Kabir said.

He made the comments in a virtual press briefing on the proposed national budget for 2021-22 fiscal year. BASIS organised the event yesterday.

About Tk 95,000 crore has been allocated in the budget for education and technology, but it is not clear how much of it is allocated for the IT sector.

Moreover, there is no specific direction in the budget about how a local IT market for private software companies will be created and how the government will implement digitisation.

Mobile financial services or digital transactions should have been exempted from value-added tax to give a boost to the industry, but the government increased taxes for the sector, which will make MFS expensive for the mass, the BASIS president said. The speakers of the event also demanded e-commerce or online business be exempted from source tax and advance trade VAT.

A lot of mega infrastructure projects are going on in the country now, but it is not clear how much will be spent for the local software sector of the projects, Kabir said.

“Local software and IT services industry will not expand if local software companies do not get the opportunity to provide software or IT services in these infrastructure projects.”

The BASIS leaders hoped the government will consider the proposals tabled by the association for building a truly digital Bangladesh.

The software and information service providers wanted the tax exemption to be extended until 2030 to attract long-term investment for the sector, but nothing was there about it in finance minister’s budget speech on June 3.