After the announcement of federal budget, last week, the textile mills have shown their disappointment saying that none of the presented proposals are incorporated in the budget speech by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar. While talking about the matter, Mr. Amir Fayyaz, chairman of All Pakistan Textile Mills Association said that, “even the amount allocated for the ‘much-touted’ export package has not fully been released. “Against an expected refund payment of Rs10 billion a month from February 15 onwards, the government released only two billion rupees in the past four months. Chairman APTMA also said that the exports will remain immobile without any automatic and transparent mechanism for the announced funds.
Further it was said that no relief was announced on the energy costs, that is a major issues for textile industry. He told the media that , the textile industry is burdened with Rs.3.63/kilowatt-hour surcharge on electricity in addition to gas infrastructure development cess on gas, “which cannot be passed on to the international buyers.” “We were expecting that a reduction would be announced in this budget, reducing the electricity tariff to Rs7/kWh without levy of surcharges,” he said.
While sharing the concerns, Mr. Fayyaz also said that the finance minister shared no words on the proposal of APTMA, in terms of permission for imports of 4million cotton bales without incidence of taxes as cotton is short in supply in the country. MR. Fayyaz reiterated that all the consignments of imported yarns from India, cleared vide the said SROs, should be subject to pre-shipment inspection certificate of SGS or other quality testing company and be mandated in letter of credit for yarn import from India for clearance under any exemption scheme.
While talking to the media MR. Fayyaz also said that the increase on the minimum turnover of the tax will additionally affect the textile mills that are already paying 1% of tax, despite of continuous losses. As per now is demanded 1.25% of turnover tax, told Mr. Amir Fayyaz.
