LAHORE: Member Customs, Federal board of Revenue (FBR), Mukarram Jah Ansari assured All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) of resolving policy and operation issues related to Export Facilitation Scheme (EFS) on priority.
He was talking to APTMA members in a meeting here at APTMA House.
DG Customs (Automation) Imran Mohmand, Chief Collector Customs, Ms Rabab Sikandar, Director General IOCO, Mubashar Baig, Collector Customs (Appraisement) Lahore, Nayyer Shafique, and collector Sialkot also spoke on different issues related to exports.
APTMA Senior Vice Chairman Northern Zone Kamran Arshad, Secretary General Raza Baqir and other senior members also shared the views.
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.
The collector customs Sambrial was appointed as focal person to discuss all the issues of EFS 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his sympathy with the textile exporters when the inputs were procured at higher value and the price of end product had rescinded.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, Collector Customs, Lahore Ms Ambreen Tarar explained main features of the scheme. She said all the exporters should apply for the EFS, as all the existing schemes would become redundant by August 2023.
Director General Customs Automation Imran Mohmmand informed that all pending modules of export scheme especially indirect export module, transfer of inputs and intermediary goods had been developed.
These modules had 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 to educate exporters on salient features of modules.
In his welcome address, APTMA SVC 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 Export Facilitation Scheme, which were pending since promulgation of EFS in July, 2021.
However, he said, still some policy and operation issues needed 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, Kamran said, transfer of plant and machinery in case of merger of two EFS users was 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 might 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 takes long time and suspend 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.
APTMA SVC North Zone Kamran Arshad 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, Ms Rubab Sikander, Chief Collector Customs Lahore, thanked APTMA for organising the meeting and hoped that such interactive sessions would continue in the future for mutual benefit of trade, industry and the department.
