LAHORE: The federal government has started holding consultative sessions seeking guidelines from businessmen associated with the gems and jewellery business for bringing necessary amendments to the widely-criticised SRO 760(1)/2013.

According to a notification issued on July 9, the Ministry of Commerce after deliberating upon various recommendations for bringing amendments to the said SRO has convened a meeting of the "Gems and Jewellery Committee" on July 13 at the Pak-Secretariat with the representation of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) and members of the private sector.

The notification, a copy of which is available with Business Recorder, says that the gems and jewellery committee, constituted recently, was assigned the task of reviewing the SRO and suggesting necessary amendments to boost the country's gold exports in international markets besides looking thoroughly into the businessmen's reservations regarding cumbersome procedural requirements.

It says that the government had already sought and discussed in detail the recommendations of the state-run departments in this regard. "However, it order to firm up the recommendations, input from private stakeholders is required," the notification says and added that stakeholders from the private sector are Irfan Samana of ARY Jewellers (Karachi), Pakistan Gems and Jewellery Traders and Exporters Association Chairman (Karachi), Salim Hemani of Aliel Jewellers (Lahore), Asad-ur-Rehman of Solitaire Designer Jewellery (Lahore), Arif Patel of Golden Arts (Karachi) and Shoaib Jamil of Siraj Sons Jewellers (Islamabad).

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021