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A government agency has suggested providing cash incentives for the Covid-19 affected e-commerce sector to help them offset the impacts, officials said.
It has also recommended increasing the rate of incentives to 20 per cent from existing 10 per cent for the export-oriented software and IT service sector, they added.
Business Promotion Council (BPC) which operates under the commerce ministry has made the recommendations to the parent ministry at the request of Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS), Bangladesh Computer Samity (BCS) and e-Commerce Association of Bangladesh (e-CAB) recently.
The BPC said it is needed to provide cash incentives for the e-commerce sector to earn foreign currency as export related e-commerce has suffered cent per cent losses due to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.
It has proposed to provide 10 per cent incentives for the members of e-CAB in the next fiscal year.
The entity has suggested providing 10per cent more cash incentives with existing 10 per cent for the IT/ITES sector to survive from the impact of the deadly virus. The sector enjoys 10 per cent cash incentives in the current fiscal year.
E-commerce sources said the sector has faced a massive financial loss due to the Covid-19 virus outbreak.
Export-oriented e-commerce service totally remains stopped. The sector earns Tk 1.0 billion annually through online payment gateway. It was supposed to earn Tk 1.75 billion in the current year. Considering the present situation, the government should provide incentives against financial losses, they added.
On the other hand, the export-oriented software and IT sector lost 50-80 per cent work orders from the international market.
In such circumstances, they said, entrepreneurs of the sector will lose their export interest if they do not get any additional support from the government.
There are over 1,400 members under BASIS. Of them, over 200 export software and IT related services to the global market.