LAHORE: Lahore Chamber of Commerce & Industry President Malik Tahir Javaid has demanded total withdrawal of regulatory duty.
In separate meetings with Federal Minister for Industries & Production Ghulam Murtaza Khan Jattoi, Prime Minister’s Assistant on Revenue Haroon Akhter, and Member Customs FBR Zahid Khokhar, LCCI President apprised them of the panic caused due to regulatory duty.
Malik Tahir Javaid was of the view that the regulatory duty regime will not only destroy the exporting sector but will also hit the manufacturing sector hard as a number of raw materials have been subjected to new regulatory duty.
He said that new regulatory duty regime would be hardly doing any service to the economy. Federal Board of Revenue should totally withdraw the recently imposed regulatory duty otherwise its destruction would be beyond the imaginations. He said that since various imported raw materials are being used in the local industries for manufacturing and exporting of goods therefore regulatory duty on these important inputs would add to the miseries of export-oriented industries. Resultantly, he said, exports would be continued to sink.
“Business community should be treated as partner and all departments including FBR should be directed by the government to take LCCI and other trade bodies on board while formulating trade, industry, imports and exports related policies” While sharing his point of view with the parliamentarians, the LCCI President said that business community is already suffering because of undue delay in payment of refunds and high cost of doing business and cannot afford to bear heavy burden of regulatory duty that is imposed without keeping in view the ground realities.
The LCCI President said that principally regulatory Duty is imposed on such products where local industry needs protection.
The LCCI understands that protection of local industry is important for any state as it provides employment opportunities and contribute sizeable amount of revenue to national exchequer, but business community fails to understand that why regulatory duty is imposed on import of raw materials and other goods which are either not locally manufactured or produced in very small quantity as compared to their imports.
