Bangladesh's Banks Asked To Make Timely Payment Of Export Bills

Dhaka, Bangladesh (AHN) - The central bank of Bangladesh has asked the commercial banks to make timely payment of export bills to help local exporters strengthen their business activities, officials said on Sunday.

Around 700 unpaid export bills worth $35 million have been pending payment until March this year thus increasing the costs of doing business, according to the central bank statistics.

Such export bills are settled within one to three months normally but in some cases it takes up to seven months, the exporters alleged.

"We have asked the banks to pay the export bills to the local exporters without any harassments," a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB), the country's central bank, told AHN Media Corp. in the capital, Dhaka.

He also said that the central bank is receiving at least five complaints each working day for non-payment of such bills.

The Bangladesh Corrugated Carton and Accessories Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BCCAMEA) welcomed the BB's latest move instructing the commercial banks to stop harassment and make payment of export bills to the exporters.

"We thank the BB for issuing such instructions to provide all necessary support to the local exporters," President of the BCCAMEA Safiullah Chowdhury told AHN in Dhaka.

The BCCAMEA is the prime organization to safeguard the interest of carton and accessories manufacturers and exporters of the country. It represents all the export oriented corrugated carton and accessories manufacturers of Bangladesh.

On May 26, 2008, the central bank of Bangladesh asked the commercial banks to settle the payment of back-to-back letters of credit (LCs) in foreign exchange opened by exporters for the products to be procured locally.

Under the existing rules, export-oriented manufacturing industries may procure inputs from local supplier operating under the bonded warehouse system against master export LCs received from aboard.