950807

Duty on newsprint

PNPO appreciates

govt's flexibility

KARACHI: The Pakistan Newspapers & Periodicals Organization (PNPO) announced on Monday that the Federal Government had shown a favourable response towards the demand to reduce duty on news print. PNPO has been negotiating with the Federal Government for the withdrawal of duties on newsprint for the past four weeks.

In a resolution, the PNPO appreciated the flexible stand adopted by the government in this regard. The sympathetic response from Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto towards the problems connected with high price of newsprint, which has more than doubled in less than a year in a country with low literacy rate, was also noted by office-bearers of the organisation.

The meeting between the Prime Minister and President, PNPO Arif Nizami in Lahore, earlier this week had been preceeded by meetings held with the Minister of State for Finance Makhdoom Shahabuddin, Secretary Finance Javed Talat and Special Assistant to Prime Minister Shahid Hasan Khan.

Earlier meetings had concentrated on the question of government attempting to reduce the burden of newsprint price increases on the newspaper industry in Pakistan. Government officials, however, had stressed that as an interim measure the burden would need to be shared with newspaper publishers and the future relief would be possible under improved economic circumstances.

PNPO office-bearers meeting stressed that they were currently working with all newspaper bodies to reduce the rates of duty upon newsprint. They cited the example of the action taken by the Indian and Bangladesh government in removing duties on newsprint to reduce the burden on newspaper readers.

PNPO noted that a government decision on the negotiations conducted on all past four weeks is expected to be announced in next few days.