LAHORE, Pakistan Tanners Association Northern Zone Chairman Azam Malik demanded of customs authorities to ensure early refunds of duty drawback claims to leather exporters in Punjab, especially in Lahore and Multan.
He told media here that exporters based in Lahore and Multan are badly hit by liquidity crisis due to non-refunding of their claims. Azam Malik said that Association has numerous meetings with the concerned collectors but of no use, citing that presently, an amount more than Rs 300 million is lying pending at Collectorate of Customs Preventive Lahore on account of duty drawback payable against consignments dispatched for exports from Lahore Airport during the past one year. He explained that despite expensive cost of air freight, exporters of leather in Lahore prefer to dispatch leather consignments through airport to meet strict deadlines of customers abroad.
At the same time, he said, all Lahore based leather manufacturing units are importing chemicals and spares from Karachi sea port and paying all duties and taxes in Karachi and this revenue should be considered for Lahore based units when fixing revenue targets. “But leather exporters of Lahore are being asked to route their imports to Lahore dryports to generate revenue for Lahore Collectorates,” he said and argued that in the absence of efficient consignment handling system at Lahore Dry Port, it is unviable for a leather manufacturing-exporting house at Lahore to arrange imports through Lahore dry ports.
Malik proposed that Lahore and Multan Collectorates should be declared as Export Collectorates like Sumbriyal. Along with revenue targets, FBR should give rebate targets to Lahore and Multan collectorates to facilitate leather exporters from Lahore and Multan, he added.
