PLPGMA demands govt announce ‘salvage plan’ to ‘rescue’ industry

LAHORE: Pakistan LPG Marketers Association (PLPGMA) has demanded of the government to announce a salvage plan to rescue the domestic LPG industry which is on the verge of collapse and come out with a balance industrial policy to resolve a severe crisis.

While presiding an urgent meeting, Chairman PLPGMA Farooq Iftikhar said that inconsistent policies regarding pricing of local versus imported LPG is putting the local LPG industry in a quagmire. He said that despite the fact that the country is facing huge trade deficit, no efforts to control imports or enhance local production are visible, as a matter of fact, imports are being focused and the local LPG industry is being ignored.

Farooq Iftikhar said that importance of import of LPG cannot be ignored as it plays an important role in bridging the gap between local demand and production of LPG. However rationalizing the taxation between the local and imported LPG is imperative to have a fair playing field for both.

The chairman also talked about the concerns within the importing LPG circles on disparity between imports through land versus sea tariffs. He mentioned the importance of border trade in national interest and security, however, one should not be indiscriminately preferred over the other as trade anomalies within the sector shall lead to industry crisis.

Chairman PLPGMA said that marketing companies selling locally produced LPG are facing problem recovering their basic cost and is getting difficult for them to continue their business in face of non-supportive attitude of the Government and local producers.

He said that at the present almost 40-50 companies out of more than 200 licensed companies are having local allocation and are bound to lift their allocation even if they have to sell below landed cost and bear huge loss.

He said that local LPG industry of Pakistan which is instrumental in selling environment friendly fuel is also solely responsible in bringing down massive trade deficit, a big economic challenge presently for the government, but policy on LPG is dependent on imports and totally ignoring the potential of untapped and shut down local LPG production facilities including that of SSGC.

He said that unfair and unjustified treatment to the domestic LPG industry, undue facilitation to the imports and unchecked smuggling is a sheer injustice and put the employment of millions on stake besides huge decline in government’s revenue.

Farooq Iftikhar said that the LPG sector of Pakistan should be treated as a major industry and should be given all necessary facilities as it is playing a major supportive role by providing cost effective and environment friendly fuel to the middle and lower class besides providing huge revenue to the government and employment to millions.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022