Lahore, July 09, 2018 (PPI-OT): As the Caretaker Government is going to notify the extension of Duty Drawback of Taxes (DDT) under PM Export package extended and approved for next three years by the previous government, the value-added textile industry on Monday asked the Caretaker Federal Minister for Commerce and Textile to restore the role of Associations in transparent disbursement of refunds, as they are the elected representatives of the exporters.
PHMA chairman Dr Khurram Anwar Khawaja congratulated Caretaker Commerce and Textile Industry Minister Mian Misbah-ur-Rehman and expressed hope that he would design a comprehensive strategy with the consultation of business community to boost the exports. He said that after a serious decline in exports in the past few years, it has now picked up with the help of DDT under PM’s Export Package, which was extended for another 3 years but its notification is pending by the Caretaker government.
“Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturers and Exporters Association (PHMA) and all other value added textile Associations draw your immediate attention that Ministry of Textile Industry had removed the crucial role of Associations as was in the previous notification of DLTL without consultation. Formerly, the Associations used to certify the authenticity of information provided by the exporting units and verify the claim documents by the authorized Executive Committee Members of the Associations.”
Dr Khurram Anwar Khawaja said that large number of complaints have been received from members of all Associations that after elimination of role of Associations, the responsibility of banks have increased to check the authenticity of claims as well as scrutiny of documents. Consequently, exporters’ claims have been delayed due to mistakes on part of banks during checking and authenticity of claims followed by scrutiny owing to which SBP marked numerous objections. Hence the exporters were facing inordinate delays while they were also penalized due to mistakes of banks, he added.
PHMA chairman said that earlier, the Associations were undertaking the responsibility to check documents, verify claims of exporters and certify the claims for onward submission to Authorized Dealers the documents like GD for eligible HS Code, Bill of Lading to confirm shipment, verify PRC, Annexure IV to check the contents of PRC e.g. Date of realization, FCY value etc and Calculation of claims.
Meaning thereby the Associations were checking the genuineness of all claims and due diligence to stop fraudulent and fake claims and were also reporting to the Ministry of Textile on quarterly basis. This way, the Associations were on board with the Ministry of Textile in respect to all the claims filed by its members. Similarly, the Associations were making the jobs of banks easy to scrutinize and process claims onwards.
With elimination of role of the Associations, the mistakes on the part of banks have multiplied to manifold as they don’t have capacity and required skills to scrutinize the claims solely as earlier the Associations were doing initial scrutiny and documents being submitted to banks were duly verified by the respective Associations. While the banks also perform multiple tasks hence they lack the information and knowledge which the Associations’ personnel do have due to dedicated duties and responsibilities since long.
He said eliminating the role of Associations means the first check and verification of documents is also eliminated. “We therefore request you to kindly restore crucial role of Associations in the forthcoming Notification of DDT under Prime Minister’s Export Package extended for next three years.” He said that PHMA is an association of manufacturers and exporters of knitwear apparel products. This year the export of this sector is going to exceed $ 2.5 billion and taken the knitwear and woven garments together, the apparel sector fetches more than 5 billion dollars during 2017-18.
For more information, contact:
Central Office,
Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturers and Exporters Association (PHMA)
PHMA House, 37-H, Block-6, P.E.C.H.S., Karachi, Pakistan
Tel: +92-21-34544789, 34522685, 34522769
Secretary General +92-21-34545683, 34544764
Fax: +92-21-34543774
Email: info@phmaonline.com, secretary.general@phmaonline.com
Website: http://www.phmaonline.com