Thai companies explore investment avenues in Pakistan
Pakistan and Thailand will hold political consultations at the secretary level as well as organise meetings of the Joint Economic Commission to further bolster economic relations between the two nations, announced Thailand Consul General in Karachi Thatree Chauvachata.
Talking to business community at the Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FCCI), the envoy expressed satisfaction over the political, economic and diplomatic ties between the two countries.
He told businessmen that Pakistan had been actively participating in the Asian Cooperation Dialogue while Thailand also supported Pakistan’s entry into the Asean Regional Forum.
Talking about trade relations, he said Pakistan was one of Thailand’s significant trade and commerce partners. In 2019, bilateral trade between the two countries jumped to $1.47 billion.
“Thailand exported goods and services worth $1.17 billion to Pakistan, which included automobiles, crude oil, chemicals, rubber products, machinery and polymer,” he said. “On the other hand, Pakistan’s exports to Thailand increased 41.45 percent last year.”
Pakistan’s main export goods sent to Thailand included aquatic animals, garments and textile.
The envoy said Pakistan ranked 36th in the list of Bangkok’s global trade partners, however, it enjoyed the second place in South Asia.
He added that four major Thai companies had already invested in Pakistan while another four were exploring avenues of investment in the country.
“Very recently, Pakistan’s Electropolymers Private Limited and Thai Stanley Electric Public Company Limited inked a historic partnership agreement by forming an international tri-party joint venture with Japan,” he said.
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Small units want all-inclusive SME strategy
To promote the role of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in mainstream economic development, Pakistan is expected to float an SME-centric policy.
However, traders are of the view that the bureaucracy has removed some major articles from the original draft of the policy document, which could have benefitted the SMEs immensely.
“It has been two years since work began on the SME policy,” said Union of Small and Medium Enterprises (Unisame) President Zulfikar Thaver. “We invite the attention of Prime Minister Imran Khan to the draft of SME Policy 2020, sent to the cabinet for approval, and urge him to make sure it is comprehensive and all-inclusive for SME promotion and development.”
In a statement on Thursday, he highlighted that Pakistan had around seven million SMEs, adding that the government had constituted an advisory committee to work on the SME policy with the help of USAID and the policy was almost finalised.
However, he said, some important aspects had been omitted from the document.
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Since the policy was going through the approval process, some crucial steps should be taken like that the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (Smeda) needed to be placed directly under the prime minister rather than under an adviser or a minister, he stressed.
Thaver pointed out that SME authorities, throughout the world, were under the control of the head of government.
“By heading the authority, the PM will assign matters pertaining to the SMEs to a secretary and there will be swift decision-making when the bureaucracy knows that the premier is involved in the matter,” he said.
“Secondly, the sector needs an SME ombudsman like ombudsmen of banking, insurance, tax and others,” said Thaver. “Tax authorities and other government officials harass SME owners and the ombudsman can deal with them.”
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Urea rates reduced by PKR375 per bag
Prices of urea have been reduced by Rs375 per 50kg bag in a bid to provide relief to farmers, announced Federal Minister for National Food Security and Research Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar.
The new price of a 50kg bag of urea is now fixed at Rs1,665. In a meeting with Pakistan Kissan Ittehad President Khalid Mehmood Khokhar on Thursday, the minister said that the government was aware of the issues being faced by the farmers and was taking measures to resolve them.
He said the development and modernisation of the agriculture sector was a top priority of the government, which was evident from the initiation of various agricultural programmes.
He pointed out that fertiliser prices had been reduced by waiving Gas Infrastructure Development Cess (GIDC) and measures were being taken to ensure uninterrupted supply to farmers.
During the meeting, issues related to cotton crop and electricity supply to the farmers were also discussed. The minister stated that the government was committed to providing full support for the farmers to increase farm productivity.
In line with the development, Fauji Fertiliser Company reduced the price of each urea bag by Rs75 with effect from March 2, 2020.
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Government fails to issue exporters’ refunds in 3-day
The government failed to honour its commitment to pay sales tax refund to exporters within three days as the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) on Thursday admitted that its system was malfunctioning and had been shut for the past 20 days.
The FBR made the admission before a special committee of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance that had been set up to find whether the FBR was making refund payments to the exporters or not.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) MNA Dr Ramesh Kumar chaired the meeting, which was also attended by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) Dr Ayesha Ghaus Pasha.
The committee once again expressed its displeasure over the FBR’s failure to share details of top six recipients of sales tax refund, directing it to provide the information in the next meeting. The committee also directed the revenue board to come up with completion information about the outstanding refunds.
“There were problems in the system that forced us to shut it for 20 days,” acknowledged FBR Inland Revenue Operations chief Aamir Amin Bhatti.
Initially, Bhatti was reluctant to accept the fact that the FBR’s FASTER system was not functioning well.
FASTER system had been launched for prompt release of sales tax refund after the government withdrew the zero-rated facility provided to five export-oriented sectors and imposed 17 percent general sales tax (GST).
Prime Minister Imran Khan and Adviser to Prime Minister on Finance Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh had promised to release tax refund within 72 hours of the issuance of refund payment order (RPO) to the exporter.
The FBR has failed miserably to improve the situation and textile exporters are still deprived of working capital, remarked Pakistan Textile Exporters Association Secretary General Azizullah Gohar.
Gohar said timely payment of sales tax refunds was still a major issue as despite all the commitments, the FBR had failed to make sales tax refunds to the zero-rated sectors within 72 hours through the FASTER system.