ISLAMABAD, May 30: The government is considering to announce a package of incentives for the closed industrial units in the budget of 2002-03.

Well-placed sources told Dawn on Thursday that proposals to this effect have already been made to make these industrial units operative.

The call of the day was to make these units operative to generate employment opportunities, save foreign exchange by producing import substitutes and to create exportable surplus, said a report made on the revival of closed units.

According to the proposals made for the revival of the closed units, copy of which was obtained by Dawn, said that the committee constituted by government should consider a package of requisite concessions for each such industrial units for a specific period.

For revival of these units, it was proposed that all penalties, fines, additional taxes, duties and mark up be waived if the owners agreed to make the payment of principal amount of taxes in mutually agreed instalments.

This will help in creation of employment opportunities, consumption of surplus electricity and other utilities, provide source of additional revenue besides import substitution and exportable surplus for saving or earning the much needed foreign exchange.

It was recommended that Bank loans may be frozen and interest/mark up be waived, besides providing working capital/loans, in cases where it was established that the industrial unit came to halt because of political victimization, abrupt changes in fiscal policies/rates to taxes, refusal of banks to provide working capital or for any other reasons beyond the control of the owners of the units.

It was observed that industrial units, lying closed because of fraud by or inefficiency of the owners/management, may be taken over by the financial institutions concerned and given on lease to the new management without any responsibility for the acts/failures of owners/old management, said the proposals.

Duty drawback: The government is likely to pay duty drawback on exports to Afghanistan and Central Asian Republics (CARs) on the basis of profiling of exporters.

Informed sources told Dawn on Thursday that a proposal to this effect was under consideration and may be effective from the next financial year 2002-03.

The CBR had recently allowed duty drawback facility on export of all goods except six items to Afghanistan and CARs via land route.

Under the gold category, exporters will be allowed duty drawback within 72 hours from the date of receipts of requisite complete claim documents.

And exporters falling under silver category will be allowed duty drawback within 15 days from the date of receipt of complete documents and refund claims of exporters falling under category ‘other’ will be sanctioned only after thorough scrutiny and verification.

To this effect, sources said, the CBR was likely to make amendments in the last year budgetary SRO450 for allowing exporters to claim refund on export to Afghanistan under these categories.