FAISALABAD-The government has directed to resolve the problems confronted by the value added textile sector and in this connection refund claims amounting to Rs35 billion would be paid before May 31, 2018.
These views were expressed by Rana Afzal Khan, Chaudhry Abid Sher Ali and Haji Akram Ansari, the state ministers for finance, energy and commerce & textile respectively during a meeting held in Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturers & Exporters Association (PHMEA) on Saturday.
They added that a special meeting with Federal Finance Minister Miftah Ismail would also be arranged on Monday to withdraw the regulatory duty on the import of cotton & polyester yarn.
Rana Afzal said that government had finalised the details of the new textile package which would be announced very soon. He assured that value added textile sector would get maximum incentives in the package. Haji Akram said that a world class Expo Centre would be constructed over 45 acres of land in M-3 Industrial Estate Faisalabad to hold international exhibitions. He hoped that the expo would become operational within next two years.
Abid Sher Ali said that government had already ensured continuous and uninterrupted power supply to the industrial sector while efforts were being made to reduce its tariff to the minimum within the given circumstances.
Earlier in his address of welcome Mian Naeem Ahmed, the chairman of Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturers & Exporters Association (North Zone), said that all over the world export of raw material was discouraged while import of raw material encouraged.
“Unfortunately it is the opposite in our case and essential raw material for value addition is allowed to be exported which is being manipulated to create artificial shortage to fleece the value added textile sector,” he added. He added that textile had become the most important sector especially after grant of the GSP Plus status to Pakistan by EU but the country had failed to earn its dividends due to the artificial shortage and price hike in cotton yarn.
He apprised the guests that among manifold problems, the liquidity crunch was on the top which was hampering the pace of export efficiency in the wake of stuck-up refunds of billions of rupees, which include sales tax, DLTL, Customs Rebate, Withholding Tax Claims etc. He lamented that previously this pro-business claiming government when came to power, exhausted 400 billion refund claims of exporters to pay off circular debts. He said that the exporters opposed such act at that time but to no avail. Today, the situation is worse than that time as neither refunds have been paid to exporters nor the menace of circular debts has been eliminated. He was of the view that if the government had decided to pay all the refunds instead of circular debts, the situation would be different leading to exports enhancement and employment generation.