APTMA rejects federal budget, demands package for industries

PESHAWAR: All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Zone, has rejected the federal budget and called for announcement of a relief package for industries to save the sector and thousands of labourers.

Addressing a press conference at the APTMA House on Saturday, the Association’s chairman for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Zone Taimoor Shah lamented that before the announcement of the budget, Federal Minister for Finance Ishaq Dar committed the allocation of Rs180 billion for the prime minister export-led growth package for payments of drawbacks on taxes to exporters on realisation of export proceeds. But, in the budget, he announced a meagre amount of only Rs4 billion.

Former president Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) and chairman APTMA Afan Aziz, Kamran Shah and others were also present on the occasion.

Taimoor Shah said that refund cases of millions of rupees of the textile sector were struck off but on the other hand the government levied new taxes and surcharges, which badly affected the industry.

He demanded the clearance of all pending sales tax refunds in July and immediate withdrawal of customs duty and sales tax re-imposed on cotton import.

He said that Textile Upgradation Fund (TUF) announced by the government in 2011-12 had not been released so far.

Expressing concern over the growing tariff of electricity, Taimoor Shah said that the rate of electricity during the previous government was Rs7 per unit, which had now jumped to Rs13 per unit despite record decline in the prices of oil in the world market. In such a situation, they could not compete in world market, he added.

Similarly, he said that in the Finance Act 2017, the government has also increased the rate of minimum turnover tax under Section 113 of the Income Tax Ordinance 2001 from 1 percent to 1.25 percent.

He called for reducing minimum turnover tax to 0.25 percent to improve liquidity of the loss-making textile industry.

He said that the imposition of further tax at the rate of one percent on supplies to unregistered persons had caused multiplier effect on the disintegrated textile value chain, and end users do not pay this additional tax. As a result, he said, the industry is burdened with additional cost on local sales. He demanded the exemption of five exporting zero rated sectors from the levy of further tax. 

Taimoor Shah also called for making indirect exports eligible under LTFF scheme and allowing the utilisation of the facility for building of infrastructure for garment plants.