What Finance Minister AMA Muhit brought out from his brownish briefcase in June 1 at the 2017-18 budget session of the parliament came as boon for many of the established and aspiring IT entrepreneurs of the country.
The local software producers get VAT exemption when the government apparently put people from virtually all walk of life through the VAT machine to take out every mint possible to be spent on a budget that is bigger by a quarter than the outgoing one.
Not only that, after prolonged persuasion and battle, the government finally reduced down the VAT rate of 96 types of IT machineries and parts to a mere 1% from as high as 25%. This would obviously pave the way of bringing world renowned hardware manufacturers to our country to set up their manufacturing unit.
Our cover story for this month focuses on the boons as well as on some of the unmet demands of this budget for the IT sector of the country. This story is complemented with our regular insight from the IT icon Mostafa Jabbar.
For our regular section of an in-depth interview of a Managing Director of a commercial bank, we have interviewed the Managing Director of Dhaka Bank Syed Mahbubur Rahman in this month. He provided us with insight about his bank as well as about the banking industry.
The usuals- our coverage and analysis about the trends and happenings in the financial technology world, industry insights from the IT heads, a movie recommendation for the people of banking, financial and IT industry and corporate news are there to quench the information thirst of our readers-which, by the grace of the almighty-is witnessing a near geometric rise since our launching.
Lastly, this is the month of Ramadan and by the time our next issue hits the market, the biggest festival Eid-ul-Fitr will be over. So, Ramadan Kareem and advanced Eid Mubarak to you all.
EDITOR
Md. Mizanur Rahman
