LAHORE: National Tariff Commission (NTC) Chairperson Anjum Asad Amin and President of the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) Kashif Anwar jointly inaugurated NTC Help Desk here at the LCCI premises on Tuesday.
LCCI Senior Vice President Chaudhry Zafar Mehmood, Vice President Adnan Khalid Butt, Director NTC Muhammad Arshad and LCCI Executive Committee Members were also present.
LCCI President Kashif Anwar appreciated the NTC Chairperson for taking immediate action regarding setting up Help Desk at LCCI.
NTC Chairperson Anjum Asad Amin said that NTC Help Desk at LCCI would work as a hotline between the business community and National Tariff Commission of Pakistan.
She agreed with the LCCI President Kashif Anwar that a Charter of Economy would be the first step towards economic stability of the country therefore, practical steps should be taken in this regard.
Anjum Asad said that National Tariff Commission was functioning under an Act and its status was judicial because it could investigate various business matters. She said, “NTC levies duties on imports while keeping in view all the facts after thorough assessment. WTO (World Trade Organization) has made it mandatory that when you impose a tariff on global trade, you will have to fully investigate.” She said that main function of NTC was the imposition of anti-dumping duty. It also created a data bank to monitor tariff and advise accordingly.
The Chairperson said that role of the NTC was also to advise the government on tariffs. She said that the National Tariff Policy was introduced in 2019 for five years. Earlier, this work was initially being done by FBR and after 2019 NTC had started work under national tariff policy. The National Tariff Policy was introduced to move towards tariff rationalization and competitiveness, she added.
She said that the policy had four objectives i.e. maximum competitiveness; employment provision; price structure and consumer welfare; and to remove the tariff anomalies. She said that a lot of work had been done on these objectives.
She added that NTC would soon release the first petrochemical policy and a huge investment was well on the way in this sector.
She said that at this time, the duties being imposed were not the NTC mandate but because of difficult times these had to impose these.
She said that a Tariff Policy Board was formed to set tariffs. The board was headed by Minister Commerce and its members included Secretary Commerce, Secretary BOI (Board of Investment), Secretary Finance, Chairman FBR (Federal Board of Revenue) and Chairman NTC.
LCCI President Kashif Anwar said that political stability was the key element for economic development therefore, the political parties should focus on the national issues to safeguard the interests of the country. He said, “Pakistan is suffering from political unpredictability that is why the foreign investors always remained reluctant to invest here.” The LCCI President said that amnesty was very important as it would bring the undeclared money into the economic circle. He said that there was a lot of money in vaults and invested in real estate sector which should be taken out through amnesty.
He said that amnesty should be granted across the board and unconditionally as it could bring out around US $10 billion into the circulation.
He requested the NTC that duties and taxes should be rationalized on those raw materials which were not being produced in the country or were not able to fulfill the required needs.
About stuck containers at ports, the LCCI President said that appropriate measures should be taken so that the businessmen could get rid of the demurrage and detention charges at ports. He said that LCCI had also signed MoUs with various medical and educational institutions to facilitate its members. He added that the political stability was very important for economic stability.
LCCI President Kashif Anwar said that centers of Traffic Police, NADRA, Excise & Taxation, SMEDA, FBR, LESCO, IPO, Exports Facilitation and Complaint Cell, passport, police, tourism and ombudsman were already providing matchless services to the business community.
He said that if businesses would grow then economy would grow as both were highly correlated with each other.
