The Senate Standing Committee on Commerce and Textile Industry has asked the Commerce Division to work out a mechanism in order to reduce the burden of multiple taxes at import stage.
Chaired by Mr Muhammad Afridi (Senator) the committee meeting asked Mr Abdul Razak Dawood (Advisor to PM) to work out a way to get rid of double and triple taxation on imports.
The meeting discussed at length the impact of infrastructure on tax imposed by Sindh and Punjab governments on importers. The committee asked the division to take up the matter in the cabinet and bring it into the notice of prime minister.
Mr Shibli Faraz, leader of the House proposed passing a resolution in the senate reiterating the need to remove double taxation, asking for tax to be charged only once and a proper mechanism to deal with the issue. He was of the view that the state should be making matters easier for investors and businesses instead of complicating them.
Mr Abdul Razak Dawood said that the trade diversification through engineering goods would increase exports while adding that through Look Africa Policy, the government would facilitate exporters to promote engineering businesses in different untapped markets of African countries as well as in European Union by making their products competitive.
He said that local textile exports were increasing and have witnessed a positive trend in past few months, expressing hope that under the second phase of Free Trade Agreement, market share of Pakistan’s textiles exports to China would increase.
Briefing the committee, he said the government had got duty-free access for goods worth $1 billion to China in addition to the access under China FTA-II, which would help boost country’s exports, particularly those of sugar, rice and local yarn.
