Policy underway to streamline operations of buying houses

The government may additionally make it obligatory for garment-buying homes to get registered with their affiliation and the Export Promotion Bureau for doing business.

Officials stated the government has drafted the policy with this provision, intended for bringing the intermediaries in apparel trade underneath legislation and accordingly ensuring accountability of the buying houses in trade-dispute resolution.

The Ministry of Commerce (MoC) on January 14 sent the draft to applicable stakeholders like Bangladesh Garment Buying Houses Association (BGBA), Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) and Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BKMEA) and the state-run Export Promotion Bureau (EPB), eliciting their opinions.

Presently, a shopping for residence can operate its commercial enterprise only by using obtaining a exchange licence from the authority concerned and there is no duty to register with a supervising physique or an association, industry humans said.

“Buying homes registered with BGBA have to re-register with EPB and EPB will yearly renew the registration after scrutinizing all requisite documents,” the draft coverage reads.

“No buying residence can switch foreign buyers’ L/C (letter of credit) for garment exports besides having registration with EPB,” it said, adding that Bangladesh Bank will difficulty notification to all business banks in this regard.

The coverage in the making also proposes Tk 50,000 as registration charge and Tk 5000 as annual fee.

The buying house involved would be accountable from LC handover to garment factories until they (the factories) get their payments, the draft says.

And a obvious system has to be observed in fixing the charge of products between shopping for houses and export-oriented garment factories.

The draft also proposes an 11-member monitoring committee headed by means of the EPB vice chairman to reveal the things to do of buying houses.

Officials said the move came following some latest incidents of buying houses allegedly getting worried in fraudulence and alternate disputes.

The EPB in a letter to commerce ministry had endorsed framing a policy, saying that in the current days buying homes have been involved in trade-dispute resolutions two on behalf of foreign customers while position of some of them found improper.

“We have demanded for a long time that all the buying homes be introduced beneath law as the wrongdoers go unpunished, or they can not be traced if any incident or fraudulence happens,” K I Hossain, president of BGBA, told the FE.

A total of 450 garment-buying houses which include 10 foreign ones are registered with the BGBA whilst an extra four hundred to 500 run across the united states of america sans any affiliation with the alternate body, he added.

Buying homes play a very necessary role in garment-export incomes as majority of the garb factories are dependent on them,” he said, including that about 50,000 graduates are employed in shopping for houses.

“It is a high-quality pass to carry each local and overseas shopping for homes under regulation,” stated Fazlee Shamim Ehsan, vice president of BKMEA.

He, however, opined that there be a “win-win situation” so that there be no paperwork that hampers the change whilst none can play foul as garment commercial enterprise is interrelated with buying houses.