How to curb smuggling

Our economy is losing a huge amount of revenue each year due to smuggling of automobile parts. The fact is that these automobile parts smugglers usually work in collusion with government authorities to bring inferior or substandard parts into the country. This has severely damaged our auto parts industry.

Under the existing customs rules, automobile parts classification is one of the major issues that affects their import, since the duty is calculated on the basis of their weight rather than value. This creates a wide disparity in the valuation of imported parts. The result is that local auto parts manufacturers lose their competitiveness. The government needs to implement realistic customs rules, take effective measures to completely block the smuggling of automobile parts and ensure the recovery of 16 percent of the sales tax from all automobile parts importers and sellers.

Fatima Akhter

Karachi