May 25, 2002	Saturday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 12,1423

LAHORE, May, 24: The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (Smeda) has recommended the government to waive import licence condition for all importers, especially the smaller ones.

Iqbal Mustafa, chief executive officer, Smeda, told Dawn here on Friday that the licence condition has become anathema for all small businesses over the years for fiscal and procedural reasons, especially for small and medium enterprises involved in manufacturing.

Big companies and multinationals could afford the financial cost of a licence and bypass procedural hiccups quite easily. But small or medium businesses, which provide around 88 per cent of local employment, failed to get a licence to import raw material for themselves. This gives unscrupulous importers a chance to make windfall profits at the cost of small businesses.

For the safety and development of small businesses, Mr Mustafa claimed, the government must end this condition as it had only created a culture of SROs and helped concentrate wealth in a few hands. What the Smeda is suggesting is that anybody carrying a national tax number should be allowed to import whatever he wants to, without any licence.

Anybody importing something would not only contribute to national coffers but also help generate business activity, he emphasised. Such a free import will surely generate more income for the government than it has been collecting through import license fee.

The government has, up until now, given a sympathetic hearing to the proposal and Smeda anticipates some good news in the coming budget, Mr Mustafa claimed.