Govt to formulate gold policy soon

The government is going to formulate a policy guideline for gold with a view to facilitating the development of the country's jewellery sector. Under the guideline, importers could easily import gold, silver, diamond and other stones in legal way.

The government wants to select a number of banks to ensure gold import. The importers will be able to import gold and raw materials using government selected bank.  The decision came at a meeting held recently at commerce ministry with streak holders. However, the commerce ministry wants to know written comments from departments concerned before it reaches the final policy. The ministry has sent letters to several government offices seeking their comments on the matter.

The customs intelligence unit conducted several drives at Apon Jewellers in last May. In the drives, the intelligence unit seized huge amount of illegal gold that had been brought in unlawful way. In the drives, the law enforce agency has sized more than 498 kilograms of gold. Gold traders called countrywide strike protesting the drive at Apon Jewellers. The issue of formulating a national gold policy came to discussion after that incident. Sources from inside the industry have said that a number of jewellery businessmen are directly or indirectly involved with gold smuggling. The new policy will be helpful in reducing gold smuggling.

They have said gold is not a freely importable product. There is no policy for gold import at  this moment. Now the businessmen can import gold through Bangladesh Bank (BB).  They have also said not a single person has imported gold by opening letter of credit (LC) in the last 10 years, all the gold coming into the country in this period has been brought by smuggling. Ganga Charan Malakar, president of Bangladesh Jewellers Samity, as in the absence of a policy guideline the Jewellery sector has not seen expected progress.  He has also said even though the finance minister in his budget speech  said that the gold policy will be made very soon, the gold traders are yet to be informed as to when such a policy will see light.

Malakar, managing director of Venus Jewellers Ltd, said the sector needs a special jewellery zone and a reduced tariff rate on the product alongside a gold policy.  The government had taken an initiative to make gold policy earlier in 1993. Under the policy, the gold traders could import gold bars and manufacture jewellery items for export.

But the NBR and finance ministry did not agree to the proposal as a result the initiative could not be implemented. Now the country's gold market is almost fully depended on smuggling for fulfilling the domestic demand of gold jewellery.