Govt to rationalise duty on commercial, industrial imports

KARACHI: The prices of paper products including books and copies in the country increased around 30 percent due to increase in regulatory and other duties on imports which increased around 36 percent.

“Imposition of 15 percent regulatory duty, 25 percent regulatory duty and 20 percent anti dumping duty, the total quantum of duties increased to Rs 36,000 per tonne from 25,000 per tonne for commercial importers”, chairman All Pakistan Paper Merchant Association (APPMA), Muhammad Saleem Memon said on Saturday.

He said in 2006-07 dollar was at Rs 60 and duty on paper was Rs 17,000 per tonne, now in 2010 dollar increased to Rs 85 and imposition of regulatory duty comes to Rs 26,000 per tonne.

He said after the imposition of regulatory duty, local paper mills also readjusted their prices as well as ex-mills prices has resulted in increasing cost of packaging material.

The total duty comes around 60.79 percent on paper industry and due to high rate duties, import of paper has registered a decline from 64,000 tonnes per annum to 17,000 tonnes in 2009, besides, government was facing a loss of Rs 12 billion revenue collections.

He asked the government to rationalize the regulatory duty on paper and Duplex Board to 5 percent in order to make books and copies affordable for students.

Memon said the printing and packaging industry is shifting to Dubai, as cost of printing has increased by 50 percent while many printing units went out of business thus rendering a large number of people jobless.

Senior member of APPMA, Rauf Ansari said, “increase in the prices of paper and paperboard has affected the local price of notebooks, copies, textbooks and office stationery.”

He said under custom tariff, paper is treated as finished goods under section (X) chapter 48 of Pakistan Customs Tariff, at high customs duty slab, at the rate of 25 percent, while in Customs Policy, raw material is at 10 percent or zero rate duty slab.

He said the said sales tax increased the import cost by around Rs 10 per kg on all kinds of paper.

The National Tariff Commission is also not fulfilling its obligation.

He said, “We import paper and Duplex Box paper from Indonesia, China, Finland, UK, Belgium and other countries to meet our domestic requirements, while local mills cater around 65 percent of our requirements”.

Ansari said around 60 percent imported material is used for making office stationery and high-grade paper products and imported cardboards cater around 35 percent of our needs. He said around 25 percent imported material is used for making notebooks and high quality paperbacks books while more than 60 percent local paper is used in making secondary and higher secondary school books.

He said the international cost of finished paper, coated and uncoated paper comes at around $970 per tonne and $690 per tonne respectively.

The domestic rise in the price Rs 3,700 per tonne to Rs 72,000 per tonne on paper used for school books and register etc, Rs 4,200 per tonne to Rs 72,000 per tonne on fine paper used for photography and notebooks and Rs 3,700 per tonne to Rs 52,700 per tonne on paper used for school books etc, he added.

Similarly, around Rs 3,400 per tonne to Rs 57,000 per tonne increased in Duplex box paper.

The price of lower quality and normal paper increased from Rs 48,500 to Rs 59,000 per tonne, which is used in the production of copies and other items.

The price of fine quality paper used in different value-added products has increased to Rs 66,000 from Rs 59,000 per tonne.

By Razi Syed
Sunday, February 14, 2010

Source: www.dailytimes.com.pk