The Bhutanese Leading the way.
For some time now Bhutan’s industrial sector has been complaining of various problems from electricity tariff issues to excise duty refund to reduced demand for their goods.
The Department of Industry (DoI) has now hired a local Bhutanese consultant company to study the heath of Bhutan’s Industrial sector across the board.
DoI Director Tandin Tshering, “The study is being carried out to see how we can enhance the existing industries because everyone is complaining about problems.”
“We want to see what challenges the companies are facing and based on this the consultant can provide recommendations on the problems and what measures are needed to overcome them,” he added.
The consultant has been asked to identify the issues in major categories of industries like alloys, agro-processing, wood, mineral based industries etc so that the study can get a more in depth idea of how the companies are performing.
The study which is being funded by the government is in its preliminary stage. The report importantly will also make fiscal recommendations where necessary.
However, the Director stressed that these would only be recommendations and a presentation would first be made to the ministry. The report which is an initiative by the DoI is expected to be ready by June 2016.
Though industries claim to be suffering the Director said that the consultant has faced difficulty in getting the balance sheet records of companies especially those who are not publically listed.
The Director said that though the report will not go into the details of the electricity tariff issue it will surely be mentioned by industries as one of the issues.
This study also comes at a moment when the DoI is in the process of developing four industrial estates across Bhutan and is trying to attract FDI investment in Bhutan.
