The Pakistan Industrial and Traders Associations Front (PIAF) has castigated the ebbing economy, claiming that it suffers a Rs 22 billion loss annually in taxes solely because of rampant smuggling and erroneous declarations and urged the authorities to act against smugglers.
In his meeting with a delegation of the Quaid-e-Azam Industrial Estate on Friday, Front Chairman Tahir Javed Malik claimed thousands of industrial units had been rendered sick because markets were rife with smuggled goods. "The Afghan Transit Trade is the main source of smuggling into Pakistan-that is about 70 percent of the total smuggling causes a revenue loss of Rs 22 billion annually to the national exchequer," he told the delegation.
He then presented a list of smuggled goods being sold in the black market that included up to Rs 16 billion tea, Rs 18 billion cigarettes, Rs 22 billion petroleum products including smuggled liquid petroleum gas, Rs 25 billion auto spare parts, Rs 200 billion other products including tiles, cosmetics clothing, footwear, medicines, spices, juices, electronics, and so forth.
He also pointed to the smuggling routes via the Pak-Afghan and Pak-Iran borders while cosmetics, jewellery and medicines were being smuggled from India via Dubai and supplies to wholesalers in the market. He estimated that up to 50,000 vehicles of various models being brought here every year from Afghanistan were among the list and cited the Honda Accord car, as an example, saying the car cost between Rs 3.5 million and Rs 4 million but these smugglers sell it at Rs 0.7 million.
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