December 09, 2006	Saturday	Ziqa'ad 17, 1427

KARACHI, Dec 8: Exporters have complained about major flaws in the textile ministry’s Research and Development (R&D) support policy, which almost disallows them to get the facility announced under relevant SROs. They have expressed resentment and have alleged that these defects in the policy are deliberate in order to deprive exporters of their genuine R&D claims.

The ministry had issued three SROs namely 803(I)/2006 dated August 10; SRO 931(I)/2006 dated September 4 and SRO 1128(I)/2006 for providing R&D support. The associations have been given the responsibility of verification of the claims filed by their member exporters.

The ministry has also put some harsh penalty up to 300 per cent against those exporters, who are found submitting fraudulent R&D claims and also withdrawal of nomination of the trade body from the panel.

However, exporters are confronting a number of flaws in the procedures and terms and conditions for getting R&D and believe that it would be next to impossible to avail the facility.

Pointing out some of the lacunas and flaws in SROs 803 and 931 a leading home textiles exporter Naveed Ahmed told Dawn that against the exports of bed linen sets, the condition of HS codes is not possible to be fulfilled because the codes under the SRO are for individual items, land not for a complete set.

He further said that customs officials did not check or verify the correct HS codes with the description of goods on the GD (Goods Declaration) form or on shipping bill at the time of shipment.

Therefore, after the shipment no amendment can be made in the GD form, and as a result of this discrepancy exporters become ineligible to claim R&D support.

Similarly, Mr Naveed said that under another SRO of (November 11, 2006), it has been made mandatory that only carrier’s bill of lading (BL) will be required for the R&D claims.

He said that presently international buyers made their own arrangements with forwarders and shipping companies and BL are mostly issued by forwarders, consolidators or agents on behalf of carriers. Consequently, by restricting transport documents to a specific type will not be practical under current shipping practices. He further said that the House bill of lading, FCRs (freight cargo receipt) and seaway bills are the transporting documents in vogue currently and should be made acceptable for the R&D claims.

Similarly, other types of B/Ls will not be possible, as this again depends on the buyers, he added.

Naveed Ahmed cautioned that if the ministry did not take corrective measures before the end of the current month the claims of exporters of home textiles and dyed/printed cloth manufacturing-cum-exporting units amounting to millions of rupees will become time-barred.

He said that exporters were already confronted with tough competition in the world market where most of products have become uncompetitive owing to high cost of doing business by such factors as higher utility tariffs, and dearer cost of finance etc.

The ministry of textile has also put another condition that each association, which has been entrusted with the task of processing R&D documents of their members, will have to submit monthly statement giving details of exports consignments certified by it for the purpose of R&D support, giving description of goods with HS Codes, amounts, quantities and destinations.

Even after putting such harsh conditions the ministry did not make flawless system, which could have helped exporters to get relief at such a critical juncture when country’s exports are falling across the board.

The exporters also alleged that these SROs had been drafted by some inexperienced bureaucrats, who have no knowledge about the required export and shipping documents as none of these conditions could be met by any export trade.