KARACHI, April 12: The overall revenue collection at import stage increased by 20 per cent, but the revenue at customs stage recorded a fabulous rise of around 52 per cent during July-March 2002-03, official sources said on Saturday.

The net revenue collection at customs stage by appraisement collectorate, Karachi customs, stood at Rs86.548 billion, as against Rs71.805 billion collected in the corresponding period last year.

Barring a nominal decline in central excise duty (CED), the collection of all other taxes, including customs duty, sales and income tax at import stage, registered fairly impressive rise.

Besides strict administrative measures, other factors, which contributed towards higher revenue collection at customs stage, were increase of 12 per cent in total import value of goods, the sources said.

A spokesman for the customs told Dawn there was 19 per cent increase in dutiable value of goods. However, the most outstanding performance on customs duty collection was impressive recoveries from the POL sector, the sources said.

Nevertheless, there were host of negative factors, which to some extent, restricted the performance, particularly the exchange rate and effective duty rate, which was slashed from 30 per cent to 25 per cent this fiscal.

Sources at the collectorate of customs (appraisement), Karachi, said the collection of customs duties during July-March 2002-03 stood at Rs25.944 billion, as against Rs17.085.92 billion, showing an increase of 51.85 per cent.

Similarly, net collection of sales tax at customs stage increased by 12.25 per cent to Rs48.812 billion compared to Rs43.486 billion collected in the corresponding period of last year.

The income tax collection at customs stage recorded a rise of 7.12 per cent to Rs10.974 billion over the last year when collection stood at Rs10.236 billion.

However, central excise duty took a dip of 18.01 per cent in collection at Rs817.05 million, as against Rs996.56 million collected in the same period last year.