PTC contributed Rs133bn tax revenues in 2021

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tobacco Company (PTC) has contributed Rs133 billion tax revenues during 2021.

A research report by Oxford Economics UK on the positive economic impact of PTC on Pakistan’s economy revealed that the PTC and its value chain supported tax revenues of Rs133 billion during the 2021 calendar year. This includes

Rs127 billion paid by PTC through excise, sales, corporation, and customs taxes plus tobacco cess. A further Rs0.5 billion was paid by the PTC value chain employees through labour taxes. An additional Rs6 billion in tax revenues were generated through its supply chain (Rs 2.3 billion) and wage-consumption (Rs3.6 billion).

The report said that the traditional cigarette business and its value chain sustained a Rs123 billion total gross value-added contribution to Pakistan’s GDP in 2021. This includes the PTC value chain’s direct contribution of Rs58.3 billion, a Rs25.3 billion indirect contribution, and a Rs39.1 billion induced contribution.

PTC supports communities across Pakistan with its social initiatives, spending nearly Rs600 million in 2021 on social and environmental programmes contributing to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

As a part of this, PTC runs the country’s largest afforestation programme, planting over 100 million trees since 1981, and its Mobile Doctor Units provided free healthcare to 150,000 patients in 2021.

PTC also carried out extensive programmes on farmer extension services, clean drinking water filtration plants, water recycling, women empowerment initiatives and green solar energy, report added.

In 2021, BAT opened the first phase of its $5 million investment in its new Global Business Services (GBS) Digital Innovation Hub in Pakistan. This is equivalent to 1.4% of the total foreign direct investment into

Pakistan’s telecommunications and information technology sector in 2021. Initial operations, from a liaison office in Islamabad, are already delivering business services to the wider BAT Group. The main Digital Innovation Hub, in

Lahore, will begin operations in the first half of 2022, and is expected to grow to its full operating capacity by 2025, report added.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022