RAWALPINDI - The Rawalpindi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (RCCI) President Mian Humayun Pervez has urged the government to take immediate steps to lower the cost of doing business in the country.
In a statement issued here on Monday, he said that the cost of doing business had increased phenomenally in Pakistan over the past decade and this affected the consumers.
“The government has taken key initiatives for creating a business friendly environment in the country such as by reducing tariff by Rs3 per unit for the industrial sector, lowering custom duty on the import of livestock related items, fisheries, textile industry and reduction in fertilizer prices,” he said, and immediately added, “But at the same time, there are certain other measures, taken by the government, which will ultimately result in high prices of production, like new slabs of taxation on the imports of vehicles and customs duty on cement, which will increase the transportation and infrastructure costs respectively.”
RCCI President said that the proposed change in the definition of input tax to exclude the sales tax, paid under respective provincial laws, would caste a negative impact on the business sector.
“Similarly, the imposition of four percent super tax on the banking industry and three percent on other large taxpayers for another year will seriously dent the businessmen’s confidence. The extra profit earned by large tax payers can be invested in new initiatives for creating more job opportunities,” he added.
Pervez said Pakistan’s exports were already on decline, and additional taxation would further hurt the manufacturing sector. The investors are more inclined towards neighbouring countries, where cost of doing business is less and high profit margins.
The RCCI president expressed the hope that the government would take concrete measures to improve governance, document the economy, reduce the burden of the existing tax payers, reform the taxation system and improve Pakistan’s rating in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index.