July 28, 2002	Sunday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 17,1423

KARACHI, July 27: Collection of revenue at import stage in the last fiscal ending June 30, 2002, rose by 2.5 per cent to Rs83 billion as against Rs81 billion collected a year ago, official sources said on Saturday.

Almost all the taxes, including customs duty, sales tax, central excise duty and income tax registered nominal rise.

Despite a host of negative developments in the aftermath of Sept 11—fall in US dollar as well as reduction in effective duty rate by 4 per cent— but still revenue collection at customs stage was highly encouraging, the sources said.

Above all a decline of 3.67 per cent in imports over last year from $10.729 billion to $10.335 billion also resulted in lesser revenue collection. Collectorate of customs (appraisement), Karachi, sources said that after Sept 11, there had been decline in import and only during May and June, 2002 the imports picked.

Despite all the negative developments, collection of all the four taxes at import stage registered marginal rise with customs duty achieving up to 97 per cent of the target.

Similarly, net collection of sales tax at customs stage increased by 20 per cent at $35 billion over the last year when collection stood at $30 billion. The higher collection is also reported to be because of upward revision in the ST rate from 15 per cent to 20 per cent on some items.

The collection of two other taxes i.e. excise duty and income tax also registered marginal increase, customs sources said.