KARACHI: Director General of Pakistan Standards Quality Control Authority (PSQCA) Muhammad Khalid Siddiq, in response to Karachi Chamber’s demand to relocate PSQCA’s Collection Point at a more accessible location near the port, immediately announced to reactivate PSQCA’s Collection Point in the locality of Saddar which will start providing services from Monday.
Speaking at a meeting during his visit to the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), DG PSQCA added that relief has been instantly provided as many traders must be facing hardships due to far-off location of PSQCA Office in Gulistan-e-Jauher.
President KCCI Shamim Ahmed Firpo, Senior Vice President KCCI Asif Nisar, Vice President KCCI Muhammad Younus Soomro, Former Presidents KCCI AQ Khalil, Haroon Agar and Abdullah Zaki along with KCCI Managing Committee members attended the meeting.
DG PSQCA Abdul Khalid Siddiq, who was accompanied by Director (Legal) PSQCA Irshad Ali Ansari, Director (QCC-South) PSQCA Nazeer Hussain and Director (Import & Export) PSQCA Engr. Ali Buksh Soomro, further informed that PSQCA drafted the policy for issuance of ‘Foreign Manufacturing License’ which was sent to the Ministry of Commerce and they have received the vetted version of the same from the Ministry which was likely to be finalized and implemented by December 2016. He invited KCCI to visit PSQCA Office to review PSQCA’s Foreign Manufacturing License regime and suggest any amendments prior to its implementation which will be given due consideration. The issuance of Foreign Manufacturing License to international manufacturers would provide huge relief to traders as it will resolve the issue of repetitive examination of consignments being frequently imported, he added.
Referring to Karachi Chamber’s concerns over varying number of samples being demanded by PSQCA officers, Abdul Khalid Siddiq agreed to publicize comprehensive list of items and the number of samples required for testing very soon by posting the details on PSQCA’s website which would help in dealing with the trust-deficit between traders and PSQCA officers.
He said that efforts were being made to minimize the grievances being faced by business community by focusing more on IT-enabled services. “We have completely revamped PSQCA’s website and an app for smartphones has also been launched to facilitate the business community. Moreover, PSQCA is also in the process of developing an online tracking system which was almost in final stages and will be launched soon. This initiative will help the business community to easily track down the status of their samples submitted to PSQCA for testing purposes”, he added.
DG PSQCA assured that he remains available most of the time to the members of business and industrial community who can visit his office to bring any grievance being faced by them to his notice, which will be resolved on priority basis as it was his utmost desire to satisfy PSQCA clients. “We are not perfect and you are also not perfect so we have to mutually come up with solutions to the problems”, he added.
He further agreed to form a Committee comprising representatives of Karachi Chamber to look into PSQCA-related issues.
Earlier, President KCCI Shamim Ahmed Firpo, while welcoming the Director General PSQCA, said that although some improvements have been witnessed in PSQCA’s functioning but lot more needs to be in order to bring this quality control authority at par with its peers around the world.
He said that many of KCCI member firms have been constantly complaining about frequent testing of imported items by PSQCA which are regularly being imported in bulk quantities from the same origin. Frequent testing intensifies the hardships being faced by importers and enhances the cost of imported goods which has to be resolved, he added.
He further stated that the existing location of PSQCA was too far from the port which hinders smooth trade. In order to provide relief to traders, PSQCA should establish some kind of sub-office near the port to facilitate traders and speed up the testing process.
On the occasion, Vice President KCCI Muhammad Younus Soomro stressed the need to implement same set of rules for testing in case of local producers and importers. Under the existing rules, testing was being carried out on quarterly basis for local producers but in case of importers, the same testing of each and every consignment was being done whenever a consignment reaches the port regardless of considering the fact that these consignments were regularly being imported from same source.
He advised that PSQCA should start issuing licenses valid up to a period of at least 6 months or may be a year for those products which were regularly being imported from the same source. “This suggestion, if considered, would certainly ease the cumbersome good clearance process”, he opined, adding that in order to further speed up the process, PSQCA must focus on providing online services in collaboration with Customs authorities.
