PM for export diversification

Hands export trophies to 45 businessmen
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday called on the business community to diversify export items and explore new markets for the country.

“Do not depend on a few products or markets…. Standards of the products must be maintained,” Hasina said while addressing an export awards ceremony at Osmani Memorial Auditorium in the capital.

She stressed the need for exporting quality products to brighten the image of the country.

The prime minister later handed the National Export Trophy for 2009-10 to 45 exporters for their extraordinary performance.

Bangladesh has much potential in the export sector and businessmen have the ability to diversify the export basket with a view to finding new markets, Hasina said in her speech as the chief guest.

She asked exporters to expand the market for jute and jute goods, ships, pharmaceuticals, leather and leather goods, agricultural products and information and communications technology items.

Jute is the highest export item after readymade garments, the prime minister noted.

In the last fiscal year, Bangladesh exported jute and jute goods worth Tk 112 crore, thereby registering a 50 percent growth.

“The government has announced a big budget for quick development,” she said, urging the businessmen not to evade taxes.

Addressing tax officials, she said that they should motivate tax payers to pay taxes, not harass them.

On the power situation, Hasina said her government had added 2,406 megawatts of electricity to the national grid since taking office in January 2009.

The government had also moved to import electricity from India, Nepal and Bhutan to improve the situation.

The government, she said, had taken up a project to set up an Active Pharmaceuticals Industrial Park and a drug testing laboratory of international standards at Gazaria in Munshiganj.

thedailystar

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