FAISALABAD City News

Zero-rating regime for exports from next year: Dastgir

Says talks with Thailand and Turkey under way for FTA

From Our Correspondent

FAISALABAD: Federal Minister for Commerce Engineer Khurram Dastgir has said that the government has decided to introduce zero-rating regime for exports from the next financial year.

Addressing the Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FCCI) here on Monday, he said that the government was facing multifarious and multidimensional challenges. However, with the sincere efforts, positive improvements could be witnessed in the energy sector, he added. He said that 16 hours long electricity loadshedding had been reduced to only four hours and efforts were being made to give further relief to the people. He said that initially a proposal was under consideration to allow zero-rating to only five export sectors but now his ministry was contemplating to extend it to nine value-added sectors. He claimed that the PML-N government had earned political stability during its 1,000 days and as soon as the economic situation improved, more relief would be provided to the business community. Regarding refund claims, he said that the issue would be resolved with the introduction of zero-rating regime for export sector and then all efforts would be diverted to the payment of pending refund claims. Regarding exports, the federal minister said that the GSP-Plus status was one of the biggest facility earned by the government, which had played an instrumental role in enhancing 33 per cent increase in our exports to the EU countries. He categorically announced that the facility would continue till Dec 31, 2023, and hence, Pakistani exporters had eight years to further explore new markets and export new products to the EU countries. Commenting on poor performance of commercial counselors appointed abroad, he said that the Ministry of Commerce had summoned back all these counselors, adding that new commercial counselors had been recruited purely on merit. He said that a strategy had been carved out to monitor their performance regularly under which the commerce secretary would personally review their performance through IT on daily basis. The minister said that the government had reduced electricity tariff while efforts were also being made to further trim it. He said that the Commerce Ministry was also reviewing the duty structure on raw material so that its proposals and recommendations included in the next federal budget. He said that the Commerce Ministry was reviewing the entire incentive structure so that the prices of various commodities could be brought upto the international level. He informed that the construction work on the Expo Centre would be started as soon as the land was provided. Regarding Free Trade Agreement, he said that Pakistani government was negotiating with Thailand and Turkey. The minister said that a road show would be organised in May this year to promote trade to the Central Asian countries. Similarly, he added, made in Pakistan exhibitions would also be held in different countries of this region.

Quoting about prices of various domestic crops, he said that the commerce ministry was reviewing the entire incentive structure so that the prices of various commodities could be brought up to the international level. Earlier, MNA Rana Afzal, MNA Mian Abdul Manan, Ch Nawaz, Syed Zia Alamdar and Jameel Ahmad addressed the meeting and pinpointed the problems confronted by the business community of Faisalabad.