FROM MENAHILL RASHID
FAISALABAD: Government must withdraw its decision for imposing 17% GST (General Sales Tax) on imported seeds in order to weed out rural poverty, achieving targets of food autarky and food security.
Addressing a meeting of the standing committee on seeds, Mr. Atif Munir Sheikh, President Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (FCCI) said that Pakistan is predominantly an agrarian economy but we could not yet achieve self-sufficiency in seeds. He lamented over the poor performance of agri-researchers and said that we have been forced to continuously import disease resistant and high yielding varieties of seeds to meet our domestic needs. He said that our main crops are cotton, wheat, rice and sugarcane which have a share of 313 billion dollars in national GDP. “In addition to these main crops, we have to import seeds of other minor crops, vegetables and fodder etc.”, he said and added that last year, we imported 311 ton seeds by spending foreign exchange of 37.9 million dollars. He said that if 17% GST was imposed, it would have direct repercussions on food inflation in addition to badly affecting the financial health of growers. Hence the Government must rescind this decision as Pakistan could only produce 3,62,000 metric tons of certified seeds as against our domestic needs of 1.6 million metric tons.
Haji Gulzar Ahmad chairman standing committee said that everything produced in a field is consumed by masses and any increase in the prices of agricultural commodities would directly hit the common man. He said that food inflation was already high and 17% GST will further aggravate this situation.
Continuing, he said that the Government was making serious efforts to trim the import bill of edible oils and in this connection various mega projects with foreign and local funding have been launched to enhance the production of domestic vegetable oil. He said that the seeds of olive, sunflower and other oil seeds crops are being imported and any tax on it will have a negative impact on these projects aimed to get rid of imported food items. He thanked the President FCCI for taking this important issue at the appropriate level and requested him to involve all other chambers to revive the much-needed dynamism in the agriculture sector.
