PESHAWAR: The prices of electric homemade room coolers and fans in Peshawar dropped after Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has withdrawn 10 percent Customs duty on the import of electrical silicon steel sheet.
Afghan refugees who were residing in Peshawar Khyber Pakhtun-khwa have also developed their local industry of electric rooms coolers which were widely popular on low rates as compare to company made room coolers. The average prices of these rooms cooler have been ranging between Rs 5000 to Rs 6000.
The important part of these rooms cooler is electrical silicon steel sheet which is used inside the motor of these fans and room coolers and these sheets were being imported from various countries.
A source confirmed Customs Today that the FBR with a view to minimizing cases of mis-declaration at the stage of import had imposed 10 percent Customs duty on Silicon and Alloy steel in the current fiscal year budget (2014-2015) and the same was notified under the First Schedule of the Customs Act, 1969, making it effective from July 1, 2014.
According to FBR sources Electrical silicon steel sheet (cold rolled), falling under H.S Code No 7225-1900 and 7226-1900, is the major raw material for manufacturing electric fans (Rotor + Stator) and previously was being imported into Pakistan on zero rated Customs duty.
However, the imposition of custom duty on electrical silicon steel sheet directly hit the electric fan industry and it was apprehended that there would be massive decline in exports as these sheets are used for manufacturing quality fans.
Later, the representatives of Pakistan Electric Fan Manufacturers Association (PEFMA) held meetings with Federal Finance Minister Muhammad Ishaq Dar and Federal Commerce Minister Khurram Dastagir and senior Customs officials to get this duty withdrawn.
Later, FBR has withdrawn the imposed duty and the industry mainly consumed non-grain-oriented electrical steel sheet HS Code 7255.1900 for manufacturing fan.
The FBR in exercise of powers conferred under Section 19 of the Customs Act, 1969 (lV of 1969) has also issued S.R.O. 565 (l) 12014, to amend the previous notification.
A dealer Ilyas Ahmad said that the export of Pakistan’s electric fans was continuously increasing and domestic fan industry had earned a foreign exchange of $ 40.35 million during FY 2013-14 as compared to $38m in FY 2012-13, thereby depicting an increase of seven percent. In terms of volume, the industry has exported some 1.8 million units of electric fan in FY 2013-14 up from 1.79 million units.
He said that although fan industry has been facing a tough competition with other exporting countries such as China, India, Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan and Vietnam, the following withdrawal of the duty on silicon steel sheet was expecting export of over two million fans during this fiscal year. He also lauded the efforts of federal finance and commerce ministers and the officials of FBR in resolving this issue on priority.
