Bond Facility Against Bank Guarantee for Partial Exporters Soon

To enhance export earnings and promote diversification, a temporary duty-free bond facility will soon be provided to partial exporters, backed by bank guarantees. Simultaneously, the full automation of bond services is underway.

These updates were shared at the second monthly coordination meeting between the National Board of Revenue (NBR) and the investment promotion agencies today. The meeting was chaired by Mr. Ashik Chowdhury, Executive Chairman of the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority and joined by Mr. Md. Abdur Rahman Khan, FCMA, Chairman of NBR.

Officials from Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority, Bangladesh Hi-Tech Park Authority, Public-Private Partnership Authority, Moheshkhali Integrated Development Authority, and Chittagong Port Authority were also present in the meeting held at BIDA’s conference room.

Key updates and decisions include:
• A gazette notification will soon be released to allow partial export-oriented industries to avail bonded warehouse benefits against a 100% bank guarantee, limited to raw materials and components imported solely for export purposes to enable price competitiveness in exports.
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• The automation of the bond services is in progress, after which manual services will be fully discontinued.

• The requirement of Utilization Declaration (UD) has been conditionally relaxed for delivery of goods/services by licensed warehouse operators to enterprises located in Export Processing Zones (EPZs) or Economic Zones, where payments are made through internal letters of credit denominated in foreign currency.

• To facilitate smoother customs clearance, consignments will now be released even if there is a mismatch between the HS Code and product description declared in the bond license, entitlement sheet, or UD, and those determined by Customs through physical inspection—provided the first four digits of the HS Code match. In such cases, importers must submit an undertaking to update the bond license or UD within 30 days.

• In addition, decisions on another 31 issues were taken to improve the investment climate.

“We are working on policy support mechanisms based on genuine investor demands that include bond facilities for partial exporters. Through coordinated efforts of the government, this will now soon be implemented. It will allow various domestic industries that rely on imported raw materials to export at competitive prices. We hope this will accelerate export diversification in non-RMG sectors and boost both local and foreign investment,” said Ashik Chowdhury, Executive Chairman of BIDA.

NBR Chairman Md. Abdur Rahman Khan FCMA emphasized on rational investment-friendly reforms and emphasized on self-assessment and post-clearance audit to ensure faster clearance of goods from ports. He provided assurances of his direct intervention in implementing necessary policy adjustments.