KARACHI, April 11: Federal Minister for Commerce Humayun Akhtar Khan on Friday directed the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) to remove discrepancy in the list of new markets and products on the basis of which the government allows freight subsidy to exporters.
Addressing newsmen at the State Life Insurance Corporation’s (SLIC) head office the minister briefly gave the outcome of his meetings held with different organizations which fell under his ministry.
However, when his attention was drawn towards huge financial losses being caused to national exchequer by some exporters who filed fake freight subsidy claims owing to discrepancy in the two lists the minister immediately issued directives to the EPB to review the lists.
For promoting exports of non-traditional items to markets the government in last trade policy allowed 25 per cent freight subsidy on exports of new products and new markets. Nevertheless the government had fixed a criterion for availing the subsidy.
For getting freight subsidy on new products exports should be less than $5 million and for new market the quantum of export must be less than $10 million (three year average) to that country.
But the two lists prepared by the EPB carry such glaring discrepancy which easily allowed exporters to file fake claims for which they did not even qualify. In the list of new markets the EPB officials in order to accommodate such fake claims have even included the name of province of a country in order to wade off the condition of quantum of export to that country.
Similarly, in the list of new products a large number of such products which not exported from the country have been included. It is even more strange that those items which are normally imported have been included in the list. Exporters even approached the EPB in this regard and asked for the removal of such discrepancy but this landed on deaf ears. A leading rice exporters is reported to have already availed huge freight subsidy on this account.
The minister further said that to organize national exhibition for the promotion of products a committee with members from KCCI, FPCCI and EPB will be set up. It will be annual feature and will be held at Karachi Expo centre. Similarly, when expo centre was established in Lahore this event would also be held there.
He expressed his satisfaction over the performance of the National Insurance Corporation (NIC) and said that during his visit to NIC he reviewed the last three years performance. Humayun Akhtar Khan said under its reform programme the corporation had carried out a lot of trimming and managed to reduce its expenditure which made its operation even better than private sector.
Giving details about his meeting with SLIC officials the minister said the corporation had registered impressive growth in its business and was ready to face competition from the private sector in the life insurance business.
APP adds: the commerce minister said that the government was considering to allow zero rated import of machinery for value added sector across the board.
The minister did not give the timeframe for announcing this policy.
He said that investment policy of 1997 had provided an incentive to value added sector for the duty free import of machinery to encourage industrialization and export oriented sector.
“This policy was withdrawn in 2001, creating problem for value added sector,” he observed.
He said that not only rice exporters, but other exporters will get this exemption across the board.
