ISLAMABAD, Oct 18: The ministry of industry is opposing the suggestion of Central Board of Revenue (CBR) to exclude three major electronic appliances from the negative list under Afghan Transit Trade (ATT) agreement.

Well-placed sources told Dawn on Saturday that the tax authorities on the direction of ministry of commerce have suggested six items to government to be excluded from the ATT negative list.

Of these six items, the sources said, the ministry of industry was opposing the exclusion of three items — refrigerators, air-conditioners, televisions and its parts— from the negative list fearing that these items would be smuggled back into the country causing considerable harm to local industry.

They said, unless an assurance is obtained from the Afghan government that these items are for the exclusive use in Afghanistan, the government should not exclude them from the negative list.

The other three proposed items to be excluded from the negative list of ATT are, video cassettes, razor blades and capacitors, the source said and added there was consensus among the government departments and stakeholders on the removal of these items from the list.

On the request of Afghan government, Pakistan had recently excluded eight items from the negative list. Currently only 16 items are on the negative list, most of them are prone to smuggling back into Pakistan.

The major items of transit trade are sugar, plastic goods, blankets, heaters, padlocks, battery cells, pencils and lighters.

According to official statistics available with Dawn, following the imposition of ban in the year 1996-97 on most of the electronic goods under ATT scheme, the production of locally manufactured, assembled air conditioners, deep freezers, television and refrigerators has registered a massive growth.

The statistics showed that the local production of refrigerators in 1996-97 was 168,000 units and that of television 72,573 sets. The local production of refrigerators soared to 250,000 units in 2001-02 and that of television to 450,000 sets.

The decision to consider exclusion of six more items from the negative list was taken following a request made by the Afghan government in the last Pakistan-Afghan Joint Ministerial Conference held in Islamabad.