BTRC moves to open local manufacturing of radio equipment

Success of the local mobile handset manufacturing industry has prompted the telecom regulator to allow companies to manufacture and assemble other radio frequency equipment locally.

With this move, a whole new avenue of local manufacturing will open up in the country where most such products are imported, said officials of the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC).

Equipment like walkie-talkies, routers, maritime, space and terrestrial antennas, network devices like firewalls, multiplexers, and other internet of things (IOT) devices will now be manufactured locally, they said.

“This could be huge for the economy as those products build the background stricture of the digital services we use. Although general people are unaware of such products, every year we spend a large sum of money to import those,” a senior BTRC official told the Business Insider.

He said the commission has already prepared a draft certification module to enable local manufacturers to enter the business.

“We will conduct a public hearing in this regard. With the inputs from the hearing, we will finalise the draft,” he said.

The permission for setting up a factory to assemble or manufacture will be provided in two categories for a 10-year period.

The enlistment fee for category A factories will be Tk15 lakh and the renewal fee will be Tk7.5 lakh, while for category B, it will be Tk10 lakh and Tk5 lakh, respectively.

BTRC will allow such factories a five-year annual fee exemption from inception date; after five years, the annual fee will be Tk2.5 lakh, according to the draft certification module.

In the draft, the BTRC also made mandatory for the factories to set up electronic waste management plants. The factories have to report their e-waste management status to the commission every six months.

The telecom regulator has also decided to offer four new licences to local mobile handset manufacturers in order to boost domestic production.

According to BTRC data, the total number of mobile handsets manufactured in the 2019-20 fiscal year was over 1.46 crore units, taking a lead by 51% of the market share over import.