LAHORE: Expressing the resolve to facilitate trade and industry, Advisor to Prime Minister on Commerce & Investment Abdul Razak Dawood said on Saturday that the regulatory duty and additional duty on those raw materials will be abolished which are not being produced locally.

“The prime objective of the government is to bring economic stability and all-out efforts are being made to achieve this goal,” Dawood said while talking to the LCCI President Mian Tariq Misbah, Senior Vice-President Nasir Hameed Khan, LCCI former presidents Mian Misbah-ur-Rehman and Ch Zafar Iqbal during an informal meeting at the Lahore Chamber of Commerce & Industry.

The advisor disclosed that Customs duty on these raw materials will also be reduced to make Pakistani products more competitive.

He said that banking agreements with Afghanistan and Uzbekistan are well on the way. Trade with these countries will be regularized and become smooth once these agreements are finalized, he added.

Dawood maintained that councils are being established to give quantum jump to the exports of leather, mango, potato, oranges and dates. This step would yield good results for the country’s economy, he added.

LCCI President Mian Tariq Misbah said that the issue of a steep rise in trade deficit requires urgent attention of the government.

“Our trade deficit in the period July-December 2020 stood at US 12.36 billion dollars which is around six percent higher than the trade deficit of $11.67 billion in the same period in 2019,” he said.

The LCCI president said that the process of refunds for our exporters needs to be streamlined. Recently due to a technical error in the refunds system resulted in wrong issuance of refunds, notices were issued to the members of business community and false cases were registered. He asked the PM advisor to play a supporting role in this matter so that the business community is not wrongly victimized.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021