ISLAMABAD, April 5: Pakistan has sought waiver from the WTO for retention of minimum customs values for some items aimed at discouraging the menace of under invoiced imports of these products, causing losses to the local industry.

Official sources in the Friends of Customs Valuation — an Informal Group of the WTO members — who are now examining this request for obtaining a formal offer from the WTO Council of Goods, told Dawn that originally Pakistan had listed many more classes of products.

However, considering strong obligation from the WTO members, this list was substantially reduced to cover only very important essential products.

The minimum values for these products were worked out and maintained for the calculation of customs duty following the adaptation of the WTO agreement on valuation, which was implemented in January 1, 2000.

Under the new rules the customs authorities were bound to accept the declared value of any imported goods if no fraudulent practice are suspected for the purpose of customs duty.

The officials said that to avoid possible misuse of this facility in the shape of under-invoicing, the government of Pakistan had worked out a list of minimum duty for essential items for protection.

Pakistan has sought further extension of around two years for the listed essential items which are prone to under-invoicing, said the officials and added it also demanded a longer extension time frame for used vehicles.

The list of minimum values of items in Pakistan included tyres and tubes; synthetic filament yarn; ceramic tiles; glass ware; iron and steel sheets; vehicles; auto parts; light fittings and toys.

“Pakistan can not shorten the listed products for the time being because of prevalent under-invoicing in these items,” said the officials. However, they said the Pakistani government had been formally requested to further shorten the list of minimum values.

The items, which Pakistan is likely to delete from its lists, included synthetic filament yarn, light fitting and toys, as duty on filament yarns has been substantially reduced and for light fittings and tyres, it is extremely difficult to fix any values because of a wide range of these products.