High taxes curb investments, says Bangladesh’s Grameenphone | Business and Economy News
Bangladesh’s largest phone company pays South Asia’s highest levels of corporate tax at 40 percent, hindering efforts to expand services.
Bangladesh’s high tax rate is discouraging telecoms operators from investing further in the South Asian nation as it prepares to adopt 5G technology, according to the head of the country’s largest phone company.
Grameenphone Ltd., which is also Bangladesh’s biggest listed company by market value and majority owned by Norway’s Telenor ASA, pays South Asia’s highest levels of corporate tax at 40%, which hinders efforts to expand services, said Yasir Azman, the company’s chief executive officer. That compares to 22% in neighboring India and 30% in Pakistan, according to industry body GSMA.
“If there’s a better tax regime, there’ll be more investment and more innovation will come into the market,” Azman said in an interview. Telecom services are “no longer a luxury product….
