June 06, 2006	Tuesday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 9, 1427

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GILGIT, June 5: Traders of Northern Areas differ over payment of customs duty on goods imported from China. At a meeting held at a hotel in the border town of Sost, 200kms north of Gilgit, one group of the Northern Areas Importers and Exporters Association opposed full customs duty on goods on the ground that people of Northern Areas had been exempted from payment of customs duty and another group, comprising small traders, opposed payment of 1.5 per cent duty in the name of Kohistan Development Fund (KDF) at the Sost customs checkpost, sources said.

The small traders said the KDF should be charged only on goods transported outside Northern Areas and there was no justification to charge such a duty on goods imported for household use within Northern Areas.

The sources said some office-bearers left the meeting when tension between the two groups increased.

The traders had resumed business after a strike in protest against the levying of the KDF tax on the Karakoram Highway when the NWFP government intervened and decided that 1.5 per cent KDF duty would be levied on imported goods from China at Sost, instead of charging Rs25,000 per container at the Dassu checkpoint in Kohistan.