The Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), on Tuesday, urged the government to withdraw the SRO (Statutory Revenue Ordinance) 448(1) 2011 on machinery import. The Chamber’s Senior Vice President Sheikh Mohammad Arshad said that withdrawal of the SRO was in the larger interest of the national economy.
The SRO, he believed, would jack up the project cost by 17 percent and would push up financial requirements for existing projects. He lamented that the new SRO would encourage under invoicing and smuggling, while the industry would fail to upgrade technology due to high costs of modern machinery import. Referring to the clause regarding removal of the sales tax exemption from import of general and industrial machinery, the SVP asserted that it should only be withdrawn from commercial importers.
He demanded the government to restore sales tax exemption on import of machinery.
