The President of the North Karachi Association of Trade and Industry (NKATI), Naseem Akhtar has appealed to the government to restore zero-rated regime if they want the export industry to survive this recession.
Naseem Akhtar said that the government first collected 17 percent sales tax from the export sector and then instead of focusing on tax collections, the entire tax machinery of the FBR was used for tax refunds. Even so, sales tax refunds took four to five months. This meant that the industrialists should have separate capital for exports and for government also in terms of sales tax as a result of their capital being stuck.
While commenting on the current business situation he said that He said that majority of buyers in Europe and the USA had lost the ability to purchase goods on cash and were instead demanding goods on credit, and China and India are ready to give them this facility.
Therefore, if the government did not provide immediate relief to the export-oriented industries in terms of taxes and if the government did not help the industries in reducing their cost of production, then the country’s exports would go down further, leaving exporters vulnerable to bankruptcies
