Pakistan Tanners Association has sent an SOS to the authorities concerned, seeking their intervention after an alarming decline of about 43 percent in leather exports during the past three years. The association's emergent meeting on Thursday chaired by its Chairman, Tanvir Aslam Chawla, at its Northern Zone Office, reviewed the current situation and appealed to the prime minister to salvage the creaking sector.
Chairman Chawla said, "There will be no economic stability in the country without taking the export sectors into consideration." The participants considered it the worst-ever export decline recorded in the past 25 years. "Leather has never faced such a steep fall in export in its history," the chairman acknowledged, and urged the prime minister, as "the leader of the business community", to heed his association's distress signal.
While the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs is on the move to work out a string of proposals for the upcoming budget, the ministry should consider the association's to arrest the decline, which is estimated to be 27 percent down already in terms of values of goods exported during July and March last year.
Chairman Chawla also called on the prime minister to arrange an emergent meeting of leather stakeholders to build a deep insight into the worsening affairs and improve the industry. His predecessor, Agha Saiddain, who had worked out past three-year data, also confirmed the association's concerns, claiming Pakistan had lost about 43 percent in terms of quantity of exported leather.
"The Pakistani leather is the best in the world being ranked even higher than India, Bangladesh and other countries and we have the best leather technology available in the country," he claimed. He then urged the government to take steps to provide for leather manufacturers-cum-exporters with level-playing field. A delegation from Pakistan made up of high ranking officers from the Ministry of Commerce, during its tour to India in December 2015, did witness a flourishing leather sector under the Indian government's patronage. The association's Committee on Duty Drawback's Chairman, Anjum Zafar, too revealed his concern."Pakistani leather exporters have crumbled because of blockage of sales tax and duty drawback refunds for the past two years. We want no benefits but we do want our money refunded. Presently, sales tax and duty draw backs refunds amounting to over Rs 250 million of the Punjab leather industry are stuck up, thus creating a liquidity crunch."
Chairman Zafar blamed the government for failing to account for the genuine needs of the leather exporting sector, saying, "Therefore, we are now standing nowhere in the global outset. Between 2010 and 2015, our regional competitors, Bangladesh, have outperformed in the same regime and its leather exports went up by 105 percent.
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