990401

Duty drawback

rates on leather

export raised

by 34 pc

RECORDER REPORT

KARACHI: The Central Board of Revenue (CBR) has raised duty drawback rates on the export of leather made ups by 34 percent, while rebate rates for small skins and large skins have been raised by 10 percent each.

A new SRO issued by the CBR has increased duty drawback on the export of leather made ups from 8.8 percent to 10.8 percent; on sheep, goats and kangaroo skin from 3.9 percent to 4.29 percent and on export of cows and buffalo skins from 5 percent to 5.5 percent.

Fawad Ijaz Khan, the Chairman of Leather Products Sub Committee of the Pakistan Tanners Association (PTA) has welcomed the rebate rates on export of leather and leather products and has expressed confidence that the enhanced rates would help the exporters in reasonably pricing their products and ultimately increasing their export output.

Lauding the efforts of Ishaq Dar, Minister of Finance and Commerce, and Wajid Jawad, Chairman of Export Promotion Bureau (EPB), in revising duty drawback rates, he said that the new rates had been necessitated in view of the international recession in leather markets specially in Turkey and Russia.

Fawad said the alarming decline (25.2 percent) in export of leather made-ups during the month of February 1999 compared with the same period of last year. However, the cumulative decrease in export of leather goods during July-February 1998-99 is 3.92 percent compared with the same period of last year.

The cumulative decrease in export of leather during the first eight months of this year is 19.5 percent. The total leather exports during July-February 1998-99 are $109 million against $135 million during the same period of last year. The total export of leather goods in the first eight months of the current year is $241 million against $251 million in the same period last year.