Since independence, the light engineering sector sprang up across the country with a very meagre support from policymakers. However, the sector has been producing machineries and spare parts that save an amount as big as Tk 3000 from the national exchequer, according to the entrepreneurs..

"Government never provided us with any mentionable policy and financial support, however, it is stumbling our growth through imposing growth-unfriendly tariff structure, Abdur Razzaq, president of Bangladesh Engineering Shilpa Malik Samity (BESMS) told The Daily Star.

He said they have potentials to emerge as the largest exporting sector within the next five years if the government patronises the sector as the country has an advantage of availability of cheap labour and LDC status.

Light engineering sector entrepreneurs identified some obstacles to developing the sector that include lack of policy support, semi-skilled manpower and inorganised industry units.

The entrepreneurs also considered the present tariff structure as the main impediment to development of the sector as in most cases import duty on finished machineries are lower than the duty on raw materials of the same products, which, they opined, made the locally made machineries less competitive.

"The raw material exporting countries are also the manufacturers of the same products. So without reshuffling duty and tariff structure it is not possible to compete with the local and global market", the BESMS chief said, describing the 15 percent duty on Alloy steel as very high when it is used as a raw material.

He lamented that the government did not pay heed to their demand for withdrawing value added tax from LP gas cylinder, though this cylinder manufacturing had turned into a promising sector. He said import duty on LP gas cylinders is only six percent.

The key person of the light engineering sector also urged the government for revival of the initiative to set up a separate park in the interest of facilitating relocation of such factories.

He said although the government responded in 2004 to their suggestion by promising allotment of plots for setting up an export processing zone exclusively for the light engineering industries, but for reasons unknown the project remained abandoned.

"If the zone is established a better co-ordination will certainly help develop the sector," Razzak hoped.

The investors mentioned that they could make the spare parts of even the world famous vehicle brand like Mercedes Benz and Toyota if the funds required for producing such parts were provided to them.

Describing the present 14-15 percent lending rate as very high, the investors of the sector urged the banks to provide loans to the sector on easy terms for its flourishment.

Rafiqul Islam, an LES entrepreneur of Dholaikhal in Dhaka said, "Technology transfer can play a vital role in invigorating the sector as the backdated technologies of China and Taiwan are still having huge potentials in our country."

Although those countries on many occasions expressed interest to shift their light engineering industries here, but the government failed to take any stand on this issue, Islam added.