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Engg sector asks Razak for tariff protection

JAVED MEHMOOD

ISLAMABAD: Leading manufacturers belonging to 25 various engineering sectors in the country have demanded immediate tariff protection here on Tuesday, sources said.

The manufacturers, who held a lengthy meeting with the Minister for Industries and Production Abdul Razak Dawood and other high-ups of the ministry, maintained that cut in tariff structure in the current budget had rendered their engineering industries unviable and incompetitive against the imported and smuggled goods.

They stressed the need of tariff protection to the engineering industry with the fear that 25 engineering sectors would collapse if the government would not change the tariff structure.

Almas Haider, SPEL managing director and head of Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry's committee on engineering led the delegation of manufacturers, comprising Nasim Saigal PEL chairman Shakeel Ahmed of Dawlance, Mazhar Uddin Ansari of Descon Engineering and Aatif Ijaz of KSB Pumps.

Industries and Production Secretary Abu Shamim Arif, chairman, State Engineering Corporation, chief expert advisory cell, Arif K. Qazi and Ikram Sheikh, vice-chairman, Engineering Development Board. also participated in the meeting.

Sources disclosed that the minister has nominated Almas Haider as coordinator and asked him to firm up proposals and problems being confronted by their engineering sectors so that a comprehensive remedial strategy could be evolved.

Meanwhile, a press statement issued in the evening said that the government would make all-out efforts to develop engineering industry in the country as it would contribute a lot towards the socio-economic uplift of the masses.

The minister informed the manufacturers that the government believed in a system which would transparent and viable enough to improve the situation.

He added that he was interested in knowing the real hurdles and bottlenecks in various industrial sectors through these meetings so as to frame policies based on merit and comprehensive enough to meet the required targets of local and international markets.

During meeting the participants exchanged ideas on various aspects of engineering industry and presented some suggestions about restructuring of tariff, deletion programme, smuggling, raw material, and prices of finished goods.

The meeting proposed to undertake sectoral research on various aspects of engineering industry and to facilitate proper actions.