Govt urged to reduce Customs duty on polyester yarn

KARACHI: The Pakistan Yarn Merchants Association (PYMA) has urged the government to reduce the Customs duty on polyester yarn and abolish anti-dumping duty as per the announcement in Federal Budget 2021/22, a statement said.

The government had announced to reduce the Customs duty to 9 per cent on polyester yarn, the main raw material for the textile industry, but after passage of several months, neither the Customs duty nor the anti-dumping duty has been reduced.

At the first meeting of the Managing Committee, Saqib Naseem, central chairman of PYMA and Muhammad Junaid Teli, vice chairman of Sindh and Balochistan regions, unanimously demanded Prime Minister Imran Khan, Adviser on Commerce and Investment Abdul Razak Dawood and Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance and Revenue Shaukat Tarin to fulfill the promise of reducing the Customs duty from 11 per cent to 9 per cent on polyester yarn.

Similarly, the anti-dumping duty should be abolished in the best interest of the textile industry, especially the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), they said.

M Usman, Khurshid Shaikh, Hanif Lakhany, Saqib Goodluck, Farhan Ashrafi, Jawed Khanani, Altaf Haroon, Noman Ilyas, Asif Amanullah, Behroze Kapadia, Shoaib Sharif, Rizwan Almas, Sohail Nisar and Rizwan Diwan also attended the meeting.

Saqib Naseem and Junaid Teli also said that the prices of polyester yarn have gone up due to the rising oil prices, excess freight charges and shortage of containers in the global market. As a result, the textile industry, SMEs, especially power looms, are bearing high costs and are having difficulty in making cloth, while it is becoming extremely difficult for them to run their units.

The PYMA office-bearers said the steady rise in production costs has forced the SMEs and small businesses to consider shutting down their businesses.