March 23, 2002	Saturday	Muharram 8, 1423

KARACHI, March 22: The Pakistan Tanners Association has taken exception to the leather garment manufacturers demand for imposing a 20 per cent duty on export of leather.

Masood Ahmad Sheikh, the PTA Chairman in a statement contended that bulk of the finished leather is being consumed by the domestic manufacturers and whatever little quantity is exported is considered unsuitable.

He said that the irrational demand of PLGMEA for imposing duty on leather export has no justification whatsoever particularly when raw wet blue leather and even finished leather which is highly value-added product can be imported duty free and PTA never opposed this facility to leather products manufacturers.

The PTA chairman said that prices of raw material have not decreased to the extent pointed out by PLGMEA because the leather garments have pushed many investors to buy large quantities of raw material on their behalf, especially at Qurbani season and also promised to buy later.