LAHORE: Despite action taken by the government to curb smuggling, smuggled tyres of all sizes are now again available in the local market posing a threat to local industry. The annual consumption of tyres in Pakistan is 14.5 million. Around 25% demand is met by domestic production and 10% of tyres are imported legally while rest is through grey channels, market sources said.

According to an estimate, smuggling of tyres alone is costing the national exchequer more than Rs 70 billion annually while it also cripples local tyre industry.

Hussain Kuli Khan, CEO GTR stated that there was a visible slow down last year when the government took action to curb smuggling for a few months but now it’s business as usual for the smugglers.

“Local industry is the backbone of any economy and a primary responsibility of the government is to provide protection and safeguard local industry’s interests so that in return they can create employment opportunities, pay taxes to national exchequer and save forex for the country,” he said, adding: “The import of tyres has in the past year decreased significantly due to the devaluation of Pak rupee against the US dollar and this shortage has been filled by the heavy influx of smuggled tyres, the smuggled tyres are of inferior quality, openly available at all main city centers but unfortunately due to their low prices, people are buying them without knowing the repercussions.”

Hussain said that the heavy influx of smuggled tyres can be gauged by the actions of the Collectorate of Customs Enforcement (CCE) as they confiscated over 55,000 smuggled tyres mainly bigger car tyre sizes worth about Rs 540 million in Karachi last year.

He said: “The government should re-evaluate the data of the items being imported via the Afghan Transit Trade (ATT) and see if the numbers of tyres being imported are supported by the vehicle population in Afghanistan. Items under the guise of ATT are either unloaded in Karachi or come back from the Afghan border via smuggling and this need to be addressed.”

He said that the local industry is playing its role in providing revenue to the exchequer along with providing employment as GTR alone contributes over Rs 3.20 billion annually to the national exchequer. He urged the government to take effective measures to curb the smuggling of tyres to improve the competitiveness of the local industry and provide equal business opportunities to the local industry.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024