ISLAMABAD, Sept 2: The government has expanded the list of gold category aimed at facilitating early payment of duty drawback claims to maximum genuine exporters, a senior official told Dawn.

Member Sales Tax, Ramzan Bhatti said that besides the existing gold category exporters the following exporters would also be included in the list provided they were not involved in tax frauds.

Those new exporters who would avail the facility included: all listed companies quoted on stock exchange; the exporting companies having annual export of $15 million or exporters of value-added goods having annual export of $1 million or exporting companies awarded best exporters by the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB).

He said that the payment of refund to gold category exporters was reduced from 9 working days to 7 working days. Similarly, payment of duty drawback to silver category exporters will be given within 10 days instead of 15 days.

Mr Bhatti said that refund to general manufacturer-cum- exporters would now be paid within 15 days of submission of claim with supportive documents as against previous 20 days.

Refund to the computerized category exporters and gold category would be paid without pre-audit. Their claims would now only be subjected to computerized scrutiny only, he said.

Member sales tax said to encourage computerization in trade and industry, a new category of exporters known as computerized category has been introduced for quick disbursement of refunds.

The exporting companies would maintain computerized record of their transactions and supply information of these transactions through internet or computer diskettes, which would be profiled separately. And they will be paid refund within 5 working days of submission of claim with supportive documents, he added.