KARACHI, July 1: The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) on Tuesday decided to release wheat to deficient areas and approved import by the private sector to bring parity in prices.
Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani, who presided over the ECC meeting at the Governor’s House here, directed the ministry of food to take immediate measures in consultation with the provincial governments to streamline flour prices, especially in the wheat-deficient areas.
The chairman of the Federal Board of Revenue informed the committee that the total tax collection had crossed the Rs1,000 billion mark by June 30.
The meeting was assured by the minister for water and power and the Planning Commission’s deputy chairman that there would be no loadshedding after next year because the government had made arrangements to feed more than 3,000MW to the national grid.
Mr Gilani ordered the formation of a committee comprising the ministers for finance and water and power, the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission and the secretary for water and power to look into problems being faced by people.
The ECC was informed that the gap between imports and exports had narrowed down because of plugging of non-essential expenses and incentives.
It was told that skyrocketing prices of petroleum, edible oil and food items had shrunk fiscal space and led to inflationary trends.
The ECC approved the summary of an incentives package of the industries ministry for investment in petrochemical, naphtha cracker, polyethylene and polypropylene.
It was informed that there were sufficient stocks of sugar and pulses in the country.
According to sources, there were dissenting views among the ministers about a summary on duty drawback for textile exports, presented by Textile Industry Minister Ahmed Mukhtar, which was based on export volume and slabs.
On the intervention of the prime minister, a decision on the issue was deferred for 15 days.
Prime Minister Gilani sought a list of small and medium enterprises in the textile industry, which were believed to be about 98 per cent of the sector.
There was a proposal to extend research and development (R&D) support to textile exports for 90 days or till a decision was reached on the formula of duty drawback.
The value-added textile sector has opposed the slab-based formula for giving duty drawback on export volume, terming it discriminatory and saying that it would destroy small and medium manufacturers-cum-exporters.
The sources said the ECC also allowed R&D claims to be acceptable as per the commerce ministry’s SRO of 2005, which gave the last date as June 30.
The State Bank had changed the date to June 25 through a circular, which had created resentment among textile exporters.
The ECC decided to constitute a new committee to formulate the duty drawback formula for textile exports, the sources said.
It approved, in principle, the import of wheat through Gwadar Port if the port authorities gave an assurance that facilities existed for handling a large quantity of imported wheat.