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The Bangladesh Bank on Sunday eased procedures for cash incentive disbursement against exports of software and IT-enabled services.
Software and ITES exporters would be able to receive cash incentive against exports of their products through international marketplaces without producing import information on TT message.
Instead, five conditions need to be fulfilled against export of software and ITES services up to $5,000, according to a BB circular.
Now, the software and ITES exporters are receiving 4 per cent cash incentive against exports.
The BB’s foreign exchange policy department issued the circular in this regard.
As per the circular, the conditions include international market places concerned need to be recognised by the Information and Communication Technology Division along with appropriate documents.
The circular requires exporters to provide web links to banks regarding agreements with international market places.
In addition, web links against exports have to be provided to banks to enable them for verification.
Applications for cash incentives must be supported by print-out of auto generated invoices and payment confirmations, the circular added.
The revised procedures will be applicable to the applications submitted from the date of issuance of the circular.
Software exporters hope that the new rules would facilitate freelancers to get cash incentive easily.
The circular has been issued as per the decision of the government, a BB official said.
As per the Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services information, 188 local firms have already registered with the association as ICT product and service exporters.
The entities are exporting their services and products to around 80 destinations across the globe while a large number of firms and individual freelancers are exporting products and services on which there is no database.
Apart from exporting ICT products and services, a number of entities have started to produce ICT and IOT devices and artificial intelligence- and cloud-based solutions for different countries.
Of the 188 entities, four companies are providing ICT-related services to government agencies in different countries.
The central bank provided Tk 216 crore in 2019 and 2020 in cash incentives against exports of ICT-based products and services.
BASIS sources said that the country’s exports of software and ICT products had already exceeded more than $1 billion and the country was eyeing achieving an annual export worth $5 billion by 2024.
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