August 2, 2002	Friday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 22,1423

ISLAMABAD, Aug 1: The government is likely to consider a number of measures for countering the menace of smuggling to provide some relief to the local industry.

Official sources told Dawn on Thursday that the measures will be discussed at length in a special conference on anti- smuggling scheduled for August 8.

A committee recently constituted by the government has submitted in its report that around 18 major items, which were prone to smuggling resulting in a huge loss to the national exchequers.

The conference is being organized on the directive of the President Pervez Musharraf to prepare a list of the smuggled prone items, which hurt the local industry.

Officials figures made available to Dawn, showed that following the imposition of ban in 1996-97 on most of the electronic goods under the Afghan Transit Trade (ATT) scheme the production of locally manufactured, assembled air conditioners, deep freezers, television and refrigerators has registered a massive growth.

According to the statistics, the local production of refrigerators in 1996-97 was 1,68,000 units; television 72,573 sets while the local production of the refrigerators soared to 2,50,000 units in the year 2001-02 and of television to 4,50,000 sets during the same year.

Officials said that the measures to be discussed in the conference for the reduction of the smuggling included tariff rationalization for smuggled prone items.

It was also under consideration to rationalise the Afghan Transit Trade (ATT) facility, which was a major source of smuggling into Pakistan through the porous boarders between Afghanistan and Pakistan.