LAHORE: Mukarram Jah Ansari, Member Customs, Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), has assured the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) of resolving policy and operation issues related to Export Facilitation Scheme (EFS) on priority.
He was speaking at a meeting, organized by the APTMA for its members on EFS.
Imran Mohmmand, DG Customs Automation, Rabab Sikandar, Chief Collector Customs, Mubashar Baig, Director General IOCO, Anbreen Tarar, Collector Customs Appraisement, Lahore and Nayyer Shafique, Collector Sialkot also addressed the exporters on different issues related to exports.
Senior Vice Chairman Northern Zone Kamran Arshad and Secretary General Raza Baqir, along with other senior members of the Association, welcomed all the guests on the occasion.
Member Customs noted that maximum export of the country would be switched over to the EFS by 1st of January 2023. He said FBR would continue to hold sessions with export Associations on different policy and operation matters of the Export Scheme.
Collector Customs Sambrial was appointed as focal person to discuss all the issues of Export Facilitation Scheme with all export Associations for earlier resolutions.
He also asked APTMA member mills to forward all their issues related to the EFS to FBR through APTMA for immediate resolution.
APTMA members highlighted that the condition of value addition was not possible in the current schemes of global recession when commodity prices and values of manufactured goods were constantly descending.
Responding to this issue, Member Customs informed that all export schemes were launched with the intent and purpose of fetching more foreign exchange. He, however, expressed his sympathy with the textile exporters when the inputs were procured at higher value and the price of end product had rescinded. He proposed APTMA to send a detailed reference to the FBR about this exceptional situation for redressal.
Earlier, Ambreen Tarar, Collector Customs, Lahore explained main features of the Scheme. She said all the exporters should apply for the EFS, as all the existing schemes will become redundant by August 2023.
Imran Mohmmand, Director General Customs Automation informed that all pending modules of Export Scheme especially Indirect Export Module, transfer of inputs and intermediary goods have been developed. These modules have either been deployed or under trial operations. He further announced to hold a detailed training workshop on indirect export module and other system related aspects at APTMA Lahore on November 03, 2022 to educate exporters on salient features of modules.
In his welcome address, Senior Vice Chairman APTMA North Zone Kamran Arshad thanked Member Customs and other customs officers for expeditiously honouring their commitment of rolling out Indirect Export and other modules of EFS which were pending since promulgation of EFS in July, 2021.
However, he said, still some policy and operation issues need urgent attention of the department.
According to him, all the indirect export GD filed manually to date should be loaded in the system to avoid any future complications
Similarly, he said, transfer of plant and machinery in case of merger of two EFS users is not being allowed yet despite complying with all procedures and formalities of SECP, FBR, Banks and other Regulators.
He said the revolving value should be introduced where the amount of exported goods may be automatically restored in the approved value.
There should be automatic switching from any of the existing scheme to EFS without linking it to detailed audit which took long time and suspended all operations, he said.
He stressed on the full implementation of zero rated procurement of local goods and services.
Also, he said, weight variation might be allowed if established in independent survey and accepted by supplier by remitting the equivalent foreign currency through banking channels.
He said the invisible loss of cotton fibre being not allowed which was unrealistic and unjustified.
He pointed out that Customs valuation ruling of March, 2017 regarding cotton waste was still being applied for calculation of manufacturing wastage despite the fact that global cotton market had drastically fallen.
In the end, Rubab Sikander, Chief Collector Customs Lahore, thanked APTMA for organizing such grand event and hoped that such interactive sessions would continue in the future for mutual benefit of trade, industry and the department.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022