The Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue reviewed on Monday Finance Bill 2017-18 besides discussing in detail the budget recommendations presented by the members of the committee.
The committee meeting, presided over by Saleem Mandviwala, also discussed industrial sector’s issues relating to tax and custom duties. During the meeting, representatives from dairy, can, ghee, stationary and cable manufacturing industries informed the committee of the problems faced by them.
The representatives from can industry said that there was only one factory of can manufacturing in the country and this industry has to pay heavy duty on import of raw material. They demanded that the local manufacturing companies should be given priority over the importers of can.
Dairy industry representatives informed that there were 4000 milk collection centres across the country. They demanded relief package for the sector. They demanded that the import of milk powder should be zero rated. In response, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) officials said that it was not possible to announce it a zero rated regime. However, they offered that the FBR, together with dairy sector representatives could set a mechanism to provide relief to the sector.
The representatives of stationary sector also demanded zero rating for the import of raw material for stationary items including pencils and erasers. They said that the industry was going in loss and one factory has already been closed. They said that instead of providing pencils and erasers to the children on subsidised rates, the government was imposing more taxes on the stationary industry.
Similarly, the cable manufacturing industry representatives pointed out that a huge quantity of duty-free manufactured cable was being imported from China which was hurting the local industry as it was unable to compete with the Chinese cables due to heavy taxes on the local industry. The industry demanded that a regulatory duty should be levied on the import of manufactured cable. The committee directed FBR to provide all possible relief to the cable industry.
Meanwhile, representatives from ghee industry told the committee that 14 out of total 26 ghee mills had been closed down in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa due to the fact that the government had given relief to ghee factories in FATA and PATA. Therefore, they said that the ghee factories in KP were unable to compete with the factories in FATA and PATA. The ghee representatives requested the committee to forward their recommendations to provide same facilities that were being provided to the Chinese investors under China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). The committee approved the request and recommended the National Assembly for approval.
The meeting was attended by Senators Talha Mehmood, Ilyas Bilour, Mohsin Khan Leghari, Osman Saifullah Khan, Mohsin Aziz and Kamil Ali Agha.