Pakistan Tea Association (PTA) chairman on Monday asked the federal government to reduce 100 percent cash margin on imports of green commodity. "The importers running business on small scale cannot afford to import green tea due to 100 percent Letter of Credit (L/C) margin that makes it difficult for traders to run their business," said Chairman Pakistan Tea Association (PTA) Shoaib Paracha, talking to Business Recorder.
He said green tea is mostly consumed by lower class of the country. Common man, poor people of remote areas across Pakistan especially in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Balochistan provinces consume this product much. Paracha requested the federal commerce ministry to look into the matter sympathetically. He demanded relief for traders in this regard so that they may sell it to poor consumers at fair price.
According to the statistics released by PTA, the total imports of green tea during past six months had been around 2.25 percent of the total such imports.