Lahore Chamber of Commerce & Industry President Irfan Iqbal Sheikh had a teleconference with Adviser to Prime Minister for Commerce, Textile, Industry, Production and Investment Abdul Razak Dawood and shared his plan for exports uplifting.
Abdul Razak Dawood said the government is committed to coping with the challenges being faced by the country. He said: "We have to bring in export culture and export driven-growth strategy". He said the responsibility of the government is to correct the things government that went wrong in the past. He said engineering and other sectors are also being focused for exports. He also emphasized to bring in quality culture as it would definitely help in enhancing exports. The adviser said he is persuading Pakistan's manufactures to send their products outside the country in quantity terms at the maximum to attain the market share.
LCCI President Irfan Iqbal Sheikh said that special permission should be granted to industries for loading export cargo. He requested that refunds of the export-oriented industries should be released on immediate basis. He appreciated the recently announced initiatives by the government to enhance the exports growth of Pakistan after the economic slowdown by COVID-19 outbreak.
Irfan Iqbal Sheikh said the government should revive the zero-rating facility for the export-oriented industries. "Income tax refunds of Rs 100 billion should be released immediately for industry to overcome liquidity issues. Special permission should be granted for transportation of labour of export-oriented industries." He urged the government to re-allow BMR (balancing, modernization and replacement) tax credit of 10 percent under section 65B of the Income Tax Ordinance.
In order to reduce the cost of doing business for our local industry, the gas tariff should be reduced by for all the industries. There should also be reduction on gas rates for industry.
He said income tax exemption certificates on electricity bills should be allowed for all the industries. The raw materials for export-oriented industries which are not manufactured locally should be zero rated.
He said the governments need to publicly announce the approval for exporters, ensuring all government functionaries like administration and law enforcers respect that approval. This announcement will also help to deal with the media which does not understand that the government has given exporters permission to complete their pending export orders.
The LCCI president said that various essential food items in Pakistan are imported from Australia, Canada and Myanmar. There is a chance that these countries might stop their exports of essential food items. The government should have a backup plan of finding substitute markets for importing essential food items on emergency basis. He said export industries which have confirmed export orders should be allowed to operate in the lockdown period. A special mechanism should be devised by the government in this regard.
He said that due to closure of airspace, the courier companies like DHL and FEDEX are not operating in Pakistan. As a result, the documents of importers are stuck in China while their consignments have arrived at the Karachi Port. The government should give a special provision to facilitate importers for releasing import consignments against copied documents with the payment of shipping guarantee which is equal to 100 percent of margin value.