For export shipments until 31st March 2017 under the package, the ECC approved extension in deadline for submission of claims from 90 days to 120 days after every shipment. The ECC also approved inclusion of certain finished leather projects in the DLTL order under the package.
The Ministry of Commerce in the proposal stated that the ECC approved the Prime Minister''s package of incentives for exporters, dated 11.01.2017. In this regard various incentives have been extended to textile and non-textile sector, besides tax related concessions for FY 2016-17 and 2017-18 entailing a financial impact of approximately Rs 180 billion.
The ministry further stated that in pursuance to the ECC decision, it issued DLTL (Non-Textile) Order, allowing drawback at the rates approved by the ECC on shipments made from 16th January 2017 to 30th June 2017. The support provided to the sectors include tanned leather. The support, however, was not provided to finished leather which was inadvertently omitted. Pakistan Tanners Association (PTA) approached Ministry of Commerce for inclusion of finished leather under the category of value added products for drawback support already available to tanned leather.
The Ministry of Commerce supports the viewpoint for inclusion of finished leather in the DLTL Order and hereby proposes the inclusion of to various PCT headings (4107.1200, 4107.9100, 4107.9200, 4112.0000, 4113.1000 and 4113.9000) in the Prime Minister''s package.
The ECC also approved Rs 380 million salaries of Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) employees for the month of January 2017. The meeting also approved the proposal of Finance Ministry for issuance of Letter of Comfort (LoC) to National Bank of Pakistan or any other financial institution, which will in turn issue a Standby Letter of Credit (SBLC) for the comfort of commercial lenders of the Lahore-Sialkot Motorway project.
On a proposal submitted by Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources, the ECC also approved allocation of 10 mmcfd gas from Tolang Gas Field to SNGPL. The price of gas will be as per the applicable petroleum policy. Another proposal of the Ministry of Petroleum regarding transportation of crude oil from Adhi Oil Field also got approval of the ECC, which authorised the concerned company to deal with the transportation arrangement of crude oil from the field purely on open competition basis without any involvement of the government.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2017