Mr. Atif Ikram Sheikh, President of FPCCI, has strongly denounced the recent decisions by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) and Balochistan governments to impose infrastructure development cess (IDC) on not only imports but exports as well. These are anti-business and anti-export measures, and FPCCI, being the apex body, is receiving feedback from all chambers, associations and trade bodies from across Pakistan to advocate the reversal of these counterproductive measures, he added.
Mr Atif Ikram Sheikh explained that international export markets are very competitive, and any change or addition in the cost of production through duties, taxes, or cess on temporary imports, i.e. raw materials and exports, has direct detrimental effects on the fulfilment of export orders in a profitable, timely, and competitive manner.
Mr. Atif Ikram Sheikh elaborated that FPCCI has always been against undue, unfair, and counterintuitive infrastructure development cess (IDC) on imports, but now the provincial governments have gone a step further and have imposed IDC on exports as well. Balochistan has levied 1.15 percent on both imports and exports plus 1 paisa per kilometer, whereas KPK has imposed 2 percent on both imports and exports, he added.
The FPCCI Chief has demanded immediate reversal of IDC from all provinces and drawn the attention of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) to the same. He added that making the country’s exports expensive is against national interest.
Additionally, to enhance export competitiveness of the country, FPCCI Chief proposed that the country needs renewed and effective temporary economic relief facility (TERF); export finance scheme (EFS) and long-term financing facility (LTFF) to boost economic activities, investments, industrialization and exports.
Mr. Saquib Fayyaz Magoon, SVP FPCCI, reiterated that Pakistan already has the highest cost of doing business in the region due to 17.5 per cent key policy rate; electricity tariffs coupled with IPPs capacity charges and gas prices. The least the provincial governments can do is to not aggravate our cost of doing business and ease of doing business challenges any further, he added.
