The National Board of Revenue (NBR) today reduced specific duty for refined sugar imports by 25 percent to Tk 4,500 per tonne to encourage imports and bring down the prices of the essential commodity in the domestic market.

The fresh cut in the specific duty for import of refined sugar comes a week after the NBR slashed the regulatory duty on sugar imports to 15 percent from 30 percent.

The revenue administration earlier said the reduced regulatory duty would cut import cost of raw sweetener by Tk 11.18 per kilogramme, and the cost of refined sugar by Tk 14.26 per kilogramme.

Retail sugar prices in Dhaka, however, did not decline despite the duty cut.

It rather rose by nearly 1 percent to Tk 127-Tk 135 each kilogramme over the past week.

Today's prices of sugar, demand for which is met through imports, were 2.75 percent higher from a month ago, according to data by the Trading Corporation Bangladesh.