Bangladesh Refrigeration and Airconditioning Merchants Association (BRAMA) raised the demands in its budget proposal submitted to the government through the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

The association proposed reduction of import duty of spare parts of airconditioners to 2.5 percent from existing 22.5 percent.

Delwar Hossain, chairman of BRAMA, said there is hardly any difference between the price of a new airconditioner and cost of repairing an old one due to the high import duty on spare parts such as compressor.

"Then why the customers will repair their airconditioners?" he said. "All the air-conditioning workshops depend on imported spare parts and so the government should reduce the duty to help them survive."

Hossain said gathering practical experiences at these workshops, 12,000 to 15,000 technicians go abroad for job every year. "If the government maintains the high import duty, many workshops will be closed down."

In March this year, regulatory duty was imposed on refrigerator parts while import duty on airconditioner parts raised to 22.5 percent but the duty on finished products increased by only five percent, the association said.

The total tax incidence, after the new adjustment, on completely knocked down (CKD) refrigerator is 63 percent while it stands at 84 percent on completely built-up (CBU) units. Previously, it was 40 percent and 79 percent respectively.

"The narrow tax difference between CKD and CBU units hit hard the local assemblers and repairing shops," Delwar Hossain, also a director of FBCCI, said.

The repair workshops are now charging more as the prices of spare parts went up following the increase of regulatory and import duty, he added.

More than 150,000 units of refrigerator and 50,000 units of airconditioner are being sold in the local market every year, market sources said. Most of the refrigerators come in CBU form and airconditioners in CKD form.