PTEA hails disbursement of drawback of taxes

Pakistan Textile Exporters Association (PTEA) has lauded the disbursement of drawback of taxes allowed under Prime Minister's Trade Enhancement Initiatives and termed it a positive move of the government towards exports promotion. PTEA leaders urged for implementation of zero rating regime in true spirit in budget 2017-18 as billions of rupees of exporters are still stuck up in refund regime.
Talking to newsmen here on Tuesday, Chairman PTEA Ajmal Farooq termed it a positive step towards exports promotion; however he stressed for implementation of zero rating regime in true sense. Zero rating facility was reinstated in July 2016 in order to save the exporters from liquidity crunch, he added. Over 40 billion rupees of textile exporters are held in sales tax refund regime; whereas incentives of over 200 billion rupees under textile policies are still unpaid. Giving details, he said that Rs 10,300 million are outstanding under Export Finance Markup Support scheme, Rs 1,500 million under Markup Rate Support against LTF, Rs 19,405 million under Technology Up-gradation Fund, Rs 434 million under Reimbursement of EOBI & Social Security Contribution of Women and Handicapped Employees of Textile Industry.
Similarly, under drawback of local taxes and levies (DLTL), Rs 7,431 million for 2009-11, Rs 700 million for 2013-14 and Rs 2.5 billion for 2014-15 are still unpaid. Reacting over the baseless arguments that volume of claims remain same in first nine months of current fiscal after reinstatement of zero rating, he said that exporters are deprived of their working capital since long as the process to get refunds is so lengthy and cumbersome that takes months for exporters to get their own money refunded and exporters are bearing huge financial cost on their own hard earned stuck-up money. PTEA's Group Leader Ahmad Kamal was of the view that export industry is the lifeline of economy and continuous drop in exports would spell an amount of trouble for the economy, especially considering that the trade deficit is continuing to widen.