PESHAWAR, Aug 3: The Frontier government has decided to work out a mechanism for tobacco grading and zoning of districts in a bid to rationalize multiple taxation on the tobacco trade.

The decision was taken in a meeting, chaired by NWFP Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani here on Sunday.

Stressing the need to do away with multiple taxes on tobacco, participants of the meeting called for finding permanent solutions to problems faced by tobacco growers with affecting the province’s tax base.

The meeting also decided to set up an export cell to explore possibilities for international trade.

Those, who attended the meeting, included MNAs and MP As from Mardan and Swabi

districts, the NWFP chief secretary, the chairman of the Pakistan Tobacco Board, representatives of the Mardan Chamber of Commerce as well as growers and dealers of tobacco.

Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani said that the provincial government would sponsor a trade delegation of Mardan Chamber of Commerce to Kazakhstan to explore the market for tobacco and sugarcane and its by-products there.