LAHORE: The Lahore Chamber of Commerce & Industry (LCCI) has urged the Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar and Governor State Bank of Pakistan Ashraf Mahmood Wathra to defer the implementation of Electronic I-Form till January 2017 as stakeholders has know-how or training about this initiative.
In a statement issued here, the LCCI President Sheikh Muhammad Arshad and Vice President Nasir Saeed said that many of LCCI members, who are engaged in the business of imports, complained about Electronic I-Form with a lot of queries and confusions. It is pertinent to mention here that most of the stakeholders including commercial banks are unaware of most important aspects and practical details of subject form.
The LCCI office-bearers said that it is vitally important to disseminate Electronic I-Form related information to importers, bankers, clearing agents, and customs personnel as to how will it work and answer their queries before its implementation, otherwise, it will raise a great hue and cry among the importers and will also create huge backlog of containers at the country ports.
They said that implementation of Electronic I-Form should be deferred till January 2017. They said that series of awareness / training sessions for the stakeholders including importers, bankers, clearing agents, and customs personnel should be organized. They also demanded that Foreign Exchange Circular should be amended to include the details about the incidence of imports where no Pakistani foreign exchange is involved. They said that the current limit of USD 10,000 for advance payment creates a lot of problems for the genuine importers. This limit should be extended to USD 20,000 or more.
The LCCI office-bearers hoped that Federal Finance Minister and Governor State Bank of Pakistan will defer the implementation of Electronic I-Form till January 2017.
