Lahore Paper Merchants Welfare Group has alleged the local paper mills to establish a cartel to enhance paper prices besides causing loss to the national exchequer through under invoicing and the group demanded the government to take serious note of the situation.
In a statement issued here on Thursday, the Group president Khamas Saeed Butt said that as a result of increase in sales tax from 15 percent to 20 percent and levy of 1 percent surcharge on the imported paper would not only push the paper prices up but would also encourage the local mills to exploit the situation.
The government should have included the writing paper in the list of essential items for the purpose of duty-free import so that the prices could be stabilised in the local market and the consumers could be saved from the local mills' exploitation, he added.
During a meeting, the CBR chairman M Yousaf Abdullah said that evaluations committees are being made effective and asked the group to submit a detailed report in this regard so that issues relating to the papers' prices and paper mills could be resolved.
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