KARACHI: The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Tuesday said the limits sanctioned by banks to individual exporters under Part-II of the Export Finance Scheme (EFA) for 2016-17 will continue up to Aug 31, to enable exporters to avail financing facilities under the plan.

The export refinance limits sanctioned in favour of banks for the year 2016-17 are due to expire on June 30.

Under the present system, exporters are required to submit EE-1 statement for the year 2016-17 duly verified by the State Bank’s Foreign Exchange Operations Department latest by Aug 31.

The banks would, therefore, not be in a position to work out revised entitlement of limits for each exporter under Part-II of the Scheme for the year 2017-18 in time.

To get the statements verified and subsequently submit the same to the concerned SBP BSC Offices within deadline, all exporters are directed to submit the statements duly complete in all aspects concerned to SBP through their banks well in time.

The banks were advised to inform exporters that they should ensure timely submission of exports related statements in their own interest and avoid delaying submission of these statements in expectation of extension in deadline.

The facility under Part-II is self regulating and exporters should be able to work out correctly their export earnings during FY 2016-17.

They are able to estimate the quantum of their entitlement of limit for the year 2017-18 and accordingly adjust their existing borrowings on or before June 30, 2017 to avoid utilisation of excess facilities under the scheme during the period of roll over which would be subject to non-refundable fine.

Requests from banks for limits under the EFS and Islamic Export Refinance Scheme (IERS) for the year 2017-18 should be submitted to the SBP separately up to June 30, 2017 to enable the central bank to finalise limits for the year 2017-18, said the State Bank.

“Banks should ensure submission of their requests for limits within due time. Further, the existing limits of banks under EFS/IERS will continue till fresh limits for FY 2017-18 are notified,” said the SBP.

Despite this cheaper money incentive for exporters, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in January this year had announced incentives worth Rs180 billion in a bid to boost Pakistan’s sagging exports.

Published in Dawn, June 7th, 2017