20000404

Uniform duty rates

for synthetic

yarn demanded

RECORDER REPORT

KARACHI: Amjad Rafi, President, Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), has urged the government to ensure uniform rates of duty both for commercial and industrial importers of synthetic filament yarn.

The KCCI chief, referring to amendments in SRO 555(1)/98 whereby the custom duty has been reduced on polyester filament yarn to 25 percent Adv. from 35 percent, said that reduced duty rate would be applicable on imports by polyester fabric manufacturers and not by commercial importers.

As the raw-material, whether imported by industrial or commercial importers, had to be ultimately used by industry, "this kind of discrimination is un-called for and against the principle of equity," he argued.

Rafi explained, "we would also like to point out an error of omission or commission in entry under column (2) where description of goods under heading 54.02 is given as polyester filament yarn instead of synthetic filament yarn given in customs import tariff. Thus the coverage has been made highly restrictive and discriminatory, as there are other industrial users of all kinds of synthetic yarn. "We strongly feel that the SRO should not be manufacture-specific and discriminatory in any way".