RECORDER REPORT

KARACHI: The government’s fresh move to increase regulatory duty by 20 percent to 45 percent on import of tiles and sanitary items is widely feared to trigger mass unemployment and affect around 10,000 traders.

“The government enhanced the regulatory duty on tiles and sanitary wares to 45 percent from 25 percent,” Chairman, All Pakistan Tiles and Sanitary Merchants Association, Mohammad Amin Lasania told newsmen at a joint press conference held at Karachi Press Club on Saturday.

Flanked by other members of the association including Javed Tar Muhammad, Muhammad Essa, Treasurer Shahid Inam besides Senior Vice Chairman Fayyaz Ilyas from Association of Builders and Developers (ABAD), he rejected the rise in regulatory duty on tiles and sanitary wares. He said that the government imposed the regulatory duty through SRO 1035 (I)/2017 dated October 16, 2017 to curtail import of unnecessary and non-essential items, fearing the situation worsens with the imposition of anti-dumping duty ranging between 10 percent and 37 percent.

“The total duty and taxes on imports of tiles and sanitary wares have increased to all time high of 135 percent from 83 percent,” he said, adding that the imposition of regulatory duty along with anti dumping duty had increased the cost of construction by 12 to 15 percent per square meter.

Whereas the cost of business in tiles and sanitary ware industry has increased by 100 percent, he said, adding that the organized sector of tiles and sanitary ware could only meet local demand of 25 to 30 percent and remaining meet through imported ones.

Slamming the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) for achieving revenue targets through stopgap arrangements instead of making long term business friendly policies, he said that the short term revenue generation plans are discouraging the local businesses, which is feared to pull down revenue collections.

The chairman on the behalf of importers, wholesalers and retailers rejected the 20 percent regulatory duty and 37 percent anti-dumping duty and demanded FBR and National Tariff Commission (NTC) to immediately withdraw notifications i.e. SRO 1035(I)/2017 and NTC notification 45/2016.

He warned that if such notifications are not withdrawn then importers, wholesalers and retailers of tiles and sanitary wares will resort to shut down their businesses, which will not only decline the revenue but also cause unemployment of one million people attached to this industry.