Duty on smartphone importation and mobile phone SIM/RIM use was proposed to increase at the national budget placed for the fiscal year 2019-20.
As a result, mobile phone use will be costlier.
Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal also proposed to reduce duty on importing specific parts to assemble mobile phones in the local celluloid phone companies.
In the proposal, import duty of smartphones was increased to 25 percent from the existing 10 percent.
The supplementary duty of mobile phone connection was proposed to increase at 10 percent from existing 5 percent.
However, AHM Mustafa Kamal placed the budget of Tk 5,23,190 crore at the Jatiya Sangsad Thursday (June 13) afternoon.
This is the country’s 48th budget and the 20th of the Awami League (AL) government in five terms while Tajuddin Ahmed presented the first budget as the finance minister of the post-independence Bangabandhu government in 1972.
Kamal placed the budget as the country’s 12th finance minister after taking the charge of the finance ministry in the third consecutive term of AL government.
Size of the budget is equivalent to 18.1 percent of total GDP.
