ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers’ Association (PPMA) has urged Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to immediately withdraw the unjust 17 percent general sales tax imposed by the Imran Khan government on raw materials used for medicine production.

According to Dr Kaiser Waheed, the official spokesperson of the PPMA, the decision of the previous government to impose 17 percent GST on raw materials required by the medicine producers had endangered the availability of the essential drugs in the country.

Waheed said that the medicine producers in the country had been agitating on this single point for the past four months but the previous government did not show any flexibility and continued with this unjust decision.

He said the unjust taxation had been hampering the best possible efforts of the PPMA’s members to keep producing essential medicines for the ailing citizens in the country.

He said the PPMA had always fully supported the government and its policies whenever the country was faced with any emergency situation, so that there should not be any discontinuity in the production of quality medicines at the most affordable prices for the patients.

Waheed said that the PPMA’s members kept on their production during the entire Covid-19 health emergency when such services were essentially required to treat a large number of critically ill patients.

He said the medicine producers in the country expect that the government should reciprocate in the same manner and withdraw any unjust tax on the production of drugs.

He said the pharmaceutical industry wanted that either this tax should be withdrawn or make it refundable on purchase basis.

He said that a representative delegation of the PPMA wanted to meet the newly-elected prime minister whenever such an opportunity was given to brief him about the hardships being faced by the drug producers in the country, while continuing with their production activities.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022