PESHAWAR: Business community of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has completely rejected the federal budget for FY 2020-21 and termed it a jugglery of words and disappointing.
Addressing a news conference here at the Chamber House on Friday after the presentation of the Budget 2020-21 by Federal Minister Hammad Azhar, businessmen said no direct relief was provided to industries and traders of the province.
They expressed concern over not incorporating business community proposals in the budget. They asked the government to review the budget proposals and give relief to the lockdown hit small industries and traders.
Besides, SCCI vice president Abdul Jalil Jan, former FPCCI president Ghazanfar Bilour, former president Haji Muhammad Afzal, Haji Muhammad Asif, members of the executive committee of the chamber, Aftab Iqbal, Mujeebur Rehman, Ihsanulalh, Nisarullah, Altaf Baig, Fazal Wahid, Abidullah Yousafzai, Faiz Rasool, Saddar Gul, Arshad Siddique, Rashid Siddique, industrialists, traders in a large number were present during the press conference.
SCCI president Engr Maqsood Anwar Pervaiz said the GDP growth decline is not good for the country's economy. He said the four government institutions, including PIA, PR, PSM and IPPs had imposed a national exchange as white elephant for which the government didn't announce any clear policy about them.
He said Pakistan has improved its position in global ranking of Ease of Doing business from 136 to 108 but the government should tell us, after that how much foreign investment has come to the country. Therefore, he stressed the need for further work on EoDB.
The chamber president demanded the government to extend across the board relief to the business community without distinguishing any specified industry or sector. He said owing to the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic, the major hospitals of the country are lacking adequate medical facilities to deal with this alarming situation. But, he lamented the government has not proposed sufficient funds for the health sector in the next fiscal budget.
He demanded the government to further bring down markup rate from 8 to 6 percent to revive businesses and stabilize hit by the covid-19 crisis, adding the doing business under present markup rate is not only difficult but impossible.
Maqsood Pervaiz said despite the prevailing equation, the 17 percent sale tax is retained, which is highly deplorable, adding that no one wants to bring under the tax net due to current policy. He rejected the government decision to increase CNIC condition from Rs 50,000 to Rs 100,000 demanding to defer for next one year and completely abolish it. He said discrimination in point of sale system between large and large traders must be ended.
SCCI chief welcomed the allocation of Rs 80 billion for supply of electricity to Special Economic Zones. He expressed concern over the retaining condition of withholding tax (WHT) on transactions from banks and asked the government to immediately abolish the WHT to give relief to coronavirus affected traders.
Ghazanfar Bilour, former FPCCI president said the reduction in ratio of taxes was not made due to the prevailing situation of the country. He said the import bill has reduced due to slowdown of import of vehicles and gradual decrease in oil prices.
He urged the government to take measures to fix the dollar rate in order to flourish businesses and industries in the country. He also demanded an end to the CNIC condition. He asked for a reduction in markup rate for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He furthermore demanded the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to make special allocation for industrialization in the upcoming provincial fiscal budget 2020-21.
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