ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) on Friday clarified that no new item has been included in the scope of the China-Pakistan Free Trade Agreement (CPFTA) through amendments introduced vide SRO 1181(I)/2022.

The amendments made through SRO 1181(I)/2022 relating to China-Pakistan Free Trade Agreement(CPFTA) are only the classification related changes due to tariff transposition exercise.

According to a clarification issued by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) on Friday, no new item has been included in the scope of China-Pakistan FTA. All the amendments introduced vide SRO.1181(I)/2022 in the aforementioned China-Pakistan FTA related SRO are only the classification related changes which are the result of tariff transposition exercise conducted to incorporate the amendments introduced by World Customs Organization (WCO) through Harmonized System HS- 2022 version.

It is important to share that Pakistan Customs Tariff (PCT) is basically based on the “Harmonized System (HS)”, a multipurpose goods nomenclature developed by WCO. The Harmonized system is normally amended by WCO once in every five years to accommodate the important scientific, technological and other trade patterns related changes emerging at the international trade horizon from time to time. All the WCO’s member countries including Pakistan are bound to transpose/incorporate these HS amendments in their respective country tariffs.

FBR has also made it clear that the transposition exercise always resulted into numerous structural changes in tariff lines owing to splitting, merging and deletion of numerous tariff lines. Recently, WCO has introduced amendments in Harmonized System through HS-2022 version and these changes have been effective at international level since 1st January, 2022.

As multiple statutory documents including Import/Export Policy Orders, SROs pertaining to Free /Preferential Trade Agreements (FTAs/PTAs) are based on HS codes, therefore, consequential alignment of these SROs as per new version of Hs nomenclature has also been performed accordingly, FBR added.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022