Business community leaders, especially the readymade
garment industry owners are critical of the government's stimulus
package of Tk 3,424 crore that mainly focused farm, power and exports
sector.
In the package the RMG sector was not included for
direct incentives except existing incentives the industry is enjoying
for what the Finance Minister AMA Muhit said "the export growth of the
apparel exports has slowed down but not yet suffered negative growth to
deserve cash assistance at the moment."
The apex business body
FBCCI said the financial package the government rolled out Sunday to
tackle immediate impact of global economic downturn will upset
readymade garment exporters.
The FBCCI president, Annisul Huq,
himself an RMG exporter, said it would be better if the package raised
cash incentives for the export-focused sector.
"It is hard to
find what we understand as stimulus in the context of the global
recession in the package announced by the finance minister," he said.
"I
can't consider it a complete stimulus package… it only addressed the
concerns of three sectors from the recession-hit ones," said the apex
body chief.
He said the spinning sub-sector of the textile
industry has been affected badly, but it has got no specific stimulus
to face the situation.
He said the apparel sector would be frustrated, although the sector has so far remained out of strong impact of the recession.
He
said: "The government needs to be flexible in this regard and remain
alert so it can come forward to rescue the sector from any worst
situation as soon as possible."
Annisul Huq, however,
appreciated the positive initiative of the government for giving some
sort of economic direction before the next budget, which would have a
good reflection on the internal economy.
He said there are some
good policy indications in the announcement, but they are under
consideration and some of them are budgetary measures. "Those are not
policy decisions," he said, adding that if implemented, the policies
would yield some good results.
BGMEA president Abdus Salam
Murshedy termed the package "unwanted" as it did not take steps to save
the apparel sector from the aftermath of the ongoing economic meltdown.
"We
see the package hardly gave any importance to the RMG sector," he told
a hurriedly called press briefing at the BGMEA conference room,
expressing his deep disappointment.
The BGMEA president urged
the government to reconsider the stimulus package to accommodate
allocations for them as a great danger is knocking at "our doors."
BKMEA,
the knit sub-sector of the apparel industry, also expressed its
frustration over the stimulus package as they have been ignored.
Criticising
the package, BKMEA president Fazlul Haque said that he does not find
any justification for increasing the subsidy allocation for the
agriculture as the sector is not affected by the recession.
"The package utterly neglected the export sector," he told a press briefing at the BKMEA conference room.
Haque
said Bangladesh Bank has decided to reduce the lending rate and waived
the down payment for loan re-scheduling as they realised the impact of
the recession. "I don't understand why the government did not pay heed
to the RMG sector."
During the last three months, he said,
export growth of the knit apparel sector was just five per cent as
compared to its average growth of 20 per cent per year. "We've already
lost US$ 450 million in the last three months," he noted.
The
BKMEA president brought allegation of injustice by the government and
said: "We've a good opportunity to cash in on the aftermath of the
recession, but the stimulus package has strangulated that opportunity."
He urged the government to make readjustment to the allocations of the stimulus package.