The President of Pakistan Citrus Fruits and Persimmons Processing Association (PCFPPA), Rana Sadiq, in a letter to Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar on Monday suggested that five times increase should be imposed immediately on Indonesian products being imported in Pakistan.
He said that Indonesian Ministry of Trade & Industry is still not convinced to withdraw the duty increase on Pakistani kinoo and bring it back to five percent from newly imposed 25 percent.
He said that trade balance between Pakistan and Indonesia is always in favour of the latter, hence the increase of duty on Pakistan's kinoo oranges is totally unfair decision by Indonesian government. "We are continuously requesting them for last many weeks through our Embassy in Jakarta but they are not paying any heed to our concerns," he added.
Sadiq told Business Recorder that if the government of Pakistan went on with five times duty increase on all Indonesian products being imported in the country it would leave very little room for Indonesian authorities to stick to the duty increase on Pakistani kinoo.
Citing the example of import duty increase on Kenyan tea import into Pakistan after increase of import duty on Pakistani rice by Kenyan government, the PCFPPA president said that it should also be exercised in case of kinoo import duty by Indonesia to save the country's kinoo exports.
The Indonesian government has increased duty on all mandarins, a type of citrus fruit, from all countries. But, signing of Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between China and Indonesia gives Chinese mandarin an edge over all other kinoo exporting countries.
Sadiq said that duty increase is causing huge losses to kinoo exporters, as well as growers, after the stoppage of import orders from Indonesian market since February 1, 2005, and kinoo exporters are finding it hard to compete in this large market, which consumes around 40 percent of total kinoo exports from Pakistan to compete with Chinese mandarin, being imported on zero duty.
According to kinoo exporters, duty was increased on mandarin type of citrus fruit but Pakistani kinoo was also included in this category. It would be appropriate that Indonesian authorities should be convinced that kinoo is a different form of citrus fruit from mandarin and should be categorised separately.
However, regrettably, a complete silence is prevailing in government departments related with export promotion and there was no news of meeting between Pakistani Embassy officials and Indonesia Trade & Industry authorities, responsible for duty related matters till the filing of this report.