ISLAMABAD, Nov 22: Textile exporters have requested the prime minister to direct the Central Board of Revenue (CBR) to make immediate payment of sales tax refunds of Rs17bn pending for the last two years.

Informed sources told Dawn that the issue among others was raised during a high-level meeting chaired by Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar Khan and Federal Minister for Textile Ministry Mushtaq Ali Cheema here on Wednesday.

The meeting was attended by stakeholders to identify reasons for the continuous decline in the export of textile products during the current fiscal year.

Sources said that over Rs12bn sales tax refunds had been held up and were to be paid before June 2005 by the CBR. Since then additional Rs5bn refunds were also pending to-date on some raw materials and accessories.

The exporters criticised the CBR for delay in making payment of refunds and said that this had created serious liquidity crunch and might lead to closure of several industrial units.

Sources said that the exporters had asked the textile ministry to take up the issue with concerned authorities and allow the refunds at the earliest.

The meeting was also informed that the decline in export was mainly occurring due to lesser potential in the chain of the textile sectors to compete with those of China, India and Bangladesh.

It was pointed out that there was a need to work out a strategy for improving the performance of all chains from growers to the manufactures.

An official in the textile ministry on condition of anonymity told Dawn that though government had announced a package of more than Rs30 billion for the textile sector but its implementation process was very slow.

He said that the ministry received queries from various sectors complaining about the release of the six per cent research and development subsidy on their exportable products.

The official said that textile exports declined during July-Oct 2006 owing to the high mark-up rates, rising prices of utilities and other inputs. The official admitted that the government policy in the past was only focusing on the development of a few sectors of the whole textile chain.