By Ali Imran
ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Commerce has released refunds worth Rs6 billion under the duty Drawback on Local Taxes and Levies (DLTL) scheme, informed Advisor to Prime Minister on Trade and Investment Abdul Razak Dawood on Thursday.
“Pleased to announce that MOC has released the new refunds worth Rs. 6,000 million under the DLTL schemes,” said Dawood in a tweet post. He added that the refunds include Rs5,400 million for the textile sector and Rs600 million for the non-textile sectors.
“I hope this will resolve the liquidity issues of our exporters amid the COVID-19 pandemic and enable them to enhance exports,” he said.
Increasing exports is vital for Pakistan’s economy to ensure its trade deficit remains manageable, which has become a major concern for policymakers.
The current government is hopeful, by 2023, the country’s exports would reach $50 billion and for this purpose, the government has initiated a ‘Make in Pakistan’ trade policy, which aimed to introduce Pakistan’s traditional and non-traditional export sectors and local products in the international trade market.
As per the data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), textile exports for the month of Aug’21 registered a growth of 46% YoY to stand at US$1.46bn.
“The improvement in global demand backdrop for textile products has created opportunities for local textile players, increasing the share of exports amidst global economies (EU and North America) opening up,” said AKD Securities in its latest report.
The report was of the view that amidst declining PKR-USD parity, textile players have obtained higher prices for cotton yarn i.e. Rs516,000 per ton in August 2021 compared to Rs489,000 per ton in July 2021, as the textile players continue to benefit from the trade war between China and US/EU, and business disruptions in competitive economies.
