The Chamber's Senior Vice President Sheikh Mohammad Arshad demanded the government to withdraw the SRO in the larger interest of the national economy, citing, the withdrawal of exemption would not only jack up the project cost by 17 percent but also push up financial requirements for existing projects.

He said the new SRO would encourage under invoicing and smuggling as well as fail the industry to upgrade its technology due to high costs of import of modern machine.

The SVP said that under this SRO, sales tax exemption was withdrawn from import of general and industrial machinery, asserting that if withdrawal of exemption is necessary, it should only be withdrawn from commercial importers.

Copyright APP (Associated Press of Pakistan), 2011