The policies of the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) alongside measures taken by the Pakistan Customs lead to a decline in imports of smuggling prone goods under Afghan Transit Trade (ATT), informed Advisor to Prime Minister on Trade and Investment Abdul Razak Dawood.

“Smuggling has caused great harm to our economy by causing loss of revenue and hurting the domestic industry. It is also a hurdle in full realization of FDI from coming into the country,” said Dawood in a tweet post.

“High tariffs also provide an incentive to smuggle. Over the past few months, MOC has rationalized tariff on a number of tariff lines. This, together with the measures taken by the Pakistan Customs, has greatly reduced smuggling as data shows that Imports of smuggling prone goods under ATT fallen considerably during Jul-Nov 2020,” informed Dawood, who also congratulated the Pakistan Customs and other agencies for their roles in reducing the smuggling.

Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) in its latest data release has stated that considerable progress has been witnessed in the value of seized smuggled goods in the ongoing current Financial Year. Smuggled goods valuing Rs 29 billion have been seized in the current year from July to December, 2020 showing 37 percent increase in comparison with the seized smuggled goods of previous year in the corresponding months valuing Rs. 21 billion.

Similarly, Duty Drawback of Rs. 5 billion has been paid from July to December, 2020.