LAHORE: The All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (Aptma) has urged the prime minister and the finance minister to allocate funds under the already announced scheme for disbursement of duty drawback to exporters against realisation of export proceeds immediately.

In a statement on Friday Aptma Chairman Aamir Fayyaz demanded prompt disbursement of the outstanding refunds of sales tax to claimants against the already issued release payment orders (RPOs) to save the industry from the liquidity crisis. Mr Fayyaz deplored that the Chief (Automation and Sales Tax) of Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has issued instructions to all Chief Commissioners RTO/LTU for rolling back of RPOs issued for payment to claimants for the 2016-17 tax period.

He said any such situation would cause liquidity crunch for exporters-cum-manufacturers for processing fresh export orders. In January, the prime minister announced incentives for exporters, but Mr Fayyaz said no payment has been made to exporters so far.

Published in Dawn, April 8th, 2017