ISLAMABAD, Nov 26: A proposal is under consideration of the government to allow Afghan traders to sell their goods, imported under Afghan Transit Trade (ATT), in the local market after paying duties.
The Afghan traders have formally sent a request to the Pakistani government demanding to allow them to clear their goods in Pakistan while paying full duty on it, an informed source told Dawn here on Monday.
Due to the US led attacks on Afghanistan and following the fall of Kabul to Northern Alliance forces, the traders were reluctant to take their goods into that country on the plea that it was not safe.
According to the source, the decision would be announced shortly as a special case to allow the traders to clear their goods lying in Quetta, Chaman and Peshawar, respectively.
The Central Board of Revenue (CBR) had allowed the Pakistan Railways to unload ATT goods at Quetta instead of Chaman because of US-led attack on Afghanistan.
When contacted, a senior official in the CBR, declined to be named, confirmed that government was likely to give permission to the traders to clear their goods locally on payment of full duty.
Explaining further, the official said that the traders would have to pay customs duty at 30 per cent, sales tax at 15 per cent and withholding tax at 6 per cent on all the ATT goods.
When asked that as around 60 per cent goods imported under ATT was sugar and there was sugar glut in Pakistan, the official said that following the payment of customs duty on sugar at a rate of 20 per cent, besides 15 per cent sales tax and 6 per cent withholding tax, the value of the ATT sugar would be higher than the local sugar available on cheaper prices in the market, he claimed.
He said that the ATT sugar would have no impact on the local production.
Moreover, he said that there was no harm in allowing the traders to sell out their ATT goods in the local market while paying full duty on them.
The import value of ATT has decreased by 55.65 per cent during October of the current financial year as it stood at Rs0.298 billion against Rs0.672 billion over the corresponding month of the last year.