The Union of Small & Medium Enterprises (Unisame) has urged the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to review the penalty rules for Export Refinance (ERF) and reduce the mark up to 2 percent for the period July 2004 to 2005 to enable the exporters to meet the challenges of WTO.
Unisame also suggested an increase in entitlement of exporters from 50 percent to 75 percent. At present, exporters can get ERF up to only 50 percent of their exports.
Zulfikar Thaver, president Unisame, speaking on behalf of SME Textile units requested Tariq Ikram, chairman Export Promotion Bureau (EPB), to impress upon the State Bank to consider the following demands of the textile exporters namely time period of submission of Form EE & EF should be at least two months and not 15 days as presently allowed and the exporter should not be penalised if he has already submitted the forms EE & EF and has resubmitted after removal of objections, if any, by the State Bank because the exporter has already effected shipment within the stipulated time and shortfall penalty should not be levied where the exporter has effected 175 percent of the ERF availed.
Aqeel Ansari, convener Export Facilitation Committee of Unisame, expressed disappointment on the postponement of the meeting convened by EPB on 26th July 2004 to examine the problems being faced by the textile units and requested the EPB to convene a meeting at an early date.
He explained the salient features of the ERF and said ERF is available to exporters under Part 1 & Part 2.
He said revised mark-up is being charged at 3.5 percent for new disbursements of loan after 1st July 2004.
The present non-shipment penalty and present shortfall penalty is at 0.37 paisas per day per thousand, which comes to about 13.5 percent per annum which is too much in the given circumstances.
He said export of any permissible item should be allowed to be substituted and adjusted for ERF obtained.
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