Chairman of Pakistan Tanners Association (PTA) Amanullah Aftab has expressed his concern over inordinate delay in issuance of submission procedure against the SRO 1062 dated 20.10.2017 already issued by the Ministry of Commerce (MoC) for the new 'Drawback of Local Taxes and Levies' (DLTL) cases that has been effective from 1st July, 2017. The MoC has authorized State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to issue further submission procedure for the claim of leather exporters, which is still pending despite lapse of considerable time period from the October 20th SRO.
He also shared that all observations/amendments to be incorporated in the submission procedure have already been discussed with SBP. He said that those were also submitted in writing to SBP, Karachi, during a meeting for finalisation with all stakeholders of leather sector of Pakistan, since the claims for DLTL are already due from 1st July, 2017.
"Almost more than four months have already been passed for since the submission to SBP," he said, adding that the delay has made the PTA's member exporters completely unable to decide whether to pass on this incentive benefit in the net unit price of leather to international buyers/customers for future export orders execution or not.
He cited that PTA's member exporters were already not competitive in international market as compared to their competitive peers in the neighbouring countries. Amanullah Aftab urges the SBP to finalize early issuance of "submission procedure" against SRO 1062 without any further delay and also incorporate PTA's proposals/suggestions already submitted to SBP during a meeting held on October 30,2017 .
The PTA's chairman highlighted core burning issues of leather industry and some other vitals issues, which included: 1. Removal of 20% additional regulatory duty imposed recently vide SRO 1035 dated 16.10.2017 on certain chemicals of leather industry which is purely fundamental chemicals for the industry that is already defraying 20% custom duty on import and now additional burden of regulatory duty is causing increase in production cost, which is already exorbitant in Pakistan.
2. Removal of condition of quarantine for raw materials such as import of raw hides and skins (wet blue/pickled). This condition is really irrelevant and illogical because the raw materials are already covered with the quarantine certificates at the time of export to Pakistan, which is mandatory element for the import to Pakistan and such duplication of submission of health/quarantine certificate for the raw materials is completely unnecessary and also to be a cause of delay at the time of clearance at ports of Pakistan and also the cause of heavy demurrage.
3. Prompt release of duty drawback claims and refund claims to leather industry, which is the main obstacle for the liquidity crunch confronting by PTA's member exporters in the execution of export business activities. "The leather industry is eagerly awaiting STPF 2015-18 with all our submissions already discussed with the Federal Commerce Minister during meetings held in Islamabad and that desperately needs prompt issuance of STPF 2015-18 without delay so that the business community can chalk out their future business plans with due incentives of the government to the industry," he urged.
Amanullah Aftab also appealed to the commerce ministry to look into the genuine demands/proposals, specially, for removal of regulatory duty and quarantine condition at the earliest so that the leather industry, which is already in severe turmoil, may flourish to achieve the desired goals for the promotion of country's exports to the desired extent with convenience.
Comments
Comments are closed.