LCCI opposes move to impose fresh RD

The Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry has opposed the government's plan to impose fresh regulatory duty as it will destroy trade and industry and would also shatter the confidence of local and foreign investors. LCCI President Malik Tahir Javaid in a statement on Saturday said that the government is mulling to impose fresh regulatory duty on a number of items to curtail the rising budget deficit. The existing regulatory duty regime is already indigestible for the business community. The Lahore Chamber was demanding its complete withdrawal while the government is posing to impose more that would affect the business atmosphere and would also create distance between the government and private sector, he added.
The LCCI president said that the government should workout possible methods to control budget deficit instead of crushing the business community through regulatory duty. It should learn from the experience of those countries that have controlled the budget deficit drastically, he said. The LCCI chief said the most effective method to bring down the budget deficit is an aim for positive economic growth. He called for reducing non-productive expenditures of the state. He said non-development expenditures are not only heavily contributing to the budget deficit but are also one of the major reasons of huge burden of external debts.
The government should broaden the tax base and bring untaxed sectors into the tax net which would increase the government revenues and reduce the budget deficit. He said that agriculture sector has the ability to contribute significantly to the national exchequer. Agriculture, livestock and dairy sector can play a crucial role in the economic turnaround of Pakistan. The government should fully exploit its potential to get rid of the economic ills. "Our future is linked with livestock sector and we have to march forward speedily for improvement of this sector," he said.
The LCCI President said that economic growth is essential to reduce the budget deficit. If trade and industry grow, the revenues of the governments will automatically increase without raising the number or ratio of the taxes, he said, and demanded of the government not only to shelve the plan for imposing fresh regulatory duties but also withdraw the existing regulatory duty. A meeting of the stakeholders must be called immediately to get their valuable feedback on the issues of regulatory duty, economic growth and budget deficit, he added.