The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has reduced customs duty on mobile phone imports from 25 percent to 10 percent to make mobile phones more affordable for the general public.
The decision was issued Tuesday through a gazette notification, marking a 60 percent reduction in the existing import duty.
To ensure local mobile assembling companies do not face unfair competition, the NBR also cut customs duty on imported components for mobile assembly from 10% to 5%. This was announced in a separate notification, reducing the existing duty by 50 percent.
According to the gazette notifications, the price of fully imported mobile phones costing over Tk 30,000 will fall by approximately Tk 5,500. Meanwhile, locally assembled mobile phones costing over Tk 30,000 will see a reduction of about Tk 1,500.
The government expects that these substantial duty cuts will bring mobile phone prices within the purchasing capacity of ordinary citizens and make digital services more accessible.
The NBR affirmed that efforts to keep mobile phone prices affordable will continue in the future.
