A report has been published on the daily Kalerkantho on February 12, 2018 regarding to introduce a new guideline by the National Board of Revenue (NBR) to prevent money laundering by providing false information on import-export. Prevention of money laundering is the demand of time. However, it should be prevented by the acceptable guidelines of related Government Authority so to stop clean entities or individuals from being unnecessarily harassed or incur losses.

According to the news report, if an organization will import/export three consignments or more within six months while valuing each consignment for more than fifty lakh, then a representative of the organization must appear before the concerned port to release the goods. The report also added to provide the release order of the goods by the customs authority. The special task force of customs authority will visit the importer's factory or head office physically to ensure authenticity of import. I think this type of guidelines will also be abused to make illegal transactions with the help of customs authority.

We all know that importers have to provide huge amount of demurrage to shipping lines for container detention & port fees to our port authority after expiry of free days. After arrival of any consignment in the port, normally it is checked in line with its documents by the port authority before releasing the goods.
In order to comply with this type of normal release procedures of a consignment, in most cases our customs authority reportedly spends more than the usual number of days needed. As a result importers have to pay huge amount of fines due to which raw materials and cost of finished goods get automatically increased.

In order to recover from this situation the importers are forced to increase their product price. Moreover, international shipping lines have a negative impression about our largest sea port (Chittagong) for mishandling the containers. Moreover, apart from lengthy delays for releasing the containers, quite often the Chittagong port is congested. That's why the globally renowned shipping lines do not agree to carry containers of our country. This is not favorable for us to conduct business with abroad.

We know that Bangladesh is an overpopulated small country. In our country, all types of raw materials are not available to produce various goods. As a result, business organizations have to import raw materials frequently and in huge volumes. Practically, many producers have to import three or more consignments of various raw materials for above 50 lakh value in a week to continue the production process smoothly.

Under these circumstances, limiting to import three consignments within six months timeframe & fixing a new price for each consignment worth more than fifty lakhs to get it released is not feasible for the country.
Apart from this, an organization will not get approval to import capital machineries for at least three months from the last date of importing the last consignment of machineries.

This is a suicidal policy.

However, globally Investment is encouraged but in our country it is indirectly discouraged by the policies in the name of preventing money laundering. Government has many ways to prevent money laundering. Why government doesn't consider other options to prevent money laundering other than applying such poor conditions on import?

As far as I know, customs department maintain a price database to monitor the price of imported goods. By regular monitoring the price database, they can easily detect the over or under invoice of the goods. Other than over or under invoice, money laundering is not possible through import & export business. In this case, customs authority has to update the international price time to time. This is the much easier process to prevent money laundering.

Also this is not necessary to verify the international value of goods at the time of release; they can do this work any time & can ask the importers/Exporters for clarification. But Government is however, avoiding from including the convenient new guidelines. Our policy makers should seriously consider the strengths and weaknesses of the policy before implementing it.

আমার এ লেখাটি গত ফেব্রুয়ারী 23, ২০১৮ খ্রিঃ তারিখে The Daily Observer পত্রিকায় প্রকাশিত।