Yarn and cloth PYMA rejects increase in sales tax

Pakistan Yarn Merchants Association (PYMA) rejected budgetary increase in sales tax on yarn and cloth as anti-trade and industry and termed it a drone attack on yarn and cloth business. Central Chairman PYMA Qaisar Shamas Guccha, Zonal Chairman Muhammad Akram Pasha and Zonal Vice Chairman Adnan Zahid talking to newsmen stated that recent Budget has increased sales tax on Yarn and Cloth to 3% and 5% respectively from 2 and 3% previously.
Demanding withdrawal of yearly incremental sales tax they said that textile sector was already heavily burdened and imposition of additional sales tax on yarn and cloth would crush this sector. They said, "We are already facing cheap yarn import from India and cheap cloth export from Russia which were damaging the local markets and we were unable to compete". They said that sales tax on yarn and cloth is being increased every year which has made the inputs very costly and our textile products are not able to compete with regional countries and further our textile export was continuously sliding for the last 11 months by 7 percent. They said that with increase in sales tax this sector would face destruction because the yarn and cloth are the base of textile industry and these constitute the basic raw material for sizing, power looms, printing, processing, made ups and garments sectors and million of people and ancillary sectors were directly influenced by yarn and cloth sectors. They further alleged that the government was consistently ignoring the textile sector and despite persistent decline in export no incentives have been provided in the budget. They said that textile sector was the back bone of the industry and was earning more than 50 percent of foreign exchange for the country and was providing 40 percent employment to the people.
They said the textile sector was already confronted with energy crisis which had resulted in closure of 40 percent units and huge fall in productivity of the industry. Resultantly, millions of people attacked with this yarn and cloth as well as textile industry and ancillary sectors were facing crisis and unemployment. They said the government was paying more attention to compliance of the IMF and neglecting the local industry and trade.