ISLAMABAD: The government on Thursday assured retailers and industrialists that their difficulties would be addressed through a comprehensive relief package including possible waiver of tax discounts.

These assurances were held out by Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance and Revenue Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh to the Retails Association of Pakistan (RAP) as well as leading industrialists and businessmen in two separate meetings held via video link.

Dr Shaikh also constituted a committee led by additional secretary finance and a member of the Federal Board of Revenue to finalise proposals for incentivising the retail sector. The retailers told Dr Shaikh that they had been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic. They lamented that their businesses had come to a halt while the stocks lying in showrooms and warehouses have reached their expiry dates.

RAP highlighted that the retail sector in Pakistan was contributing 18 per cent to the GDP besides employing 16pc of the labour force. The representatives said that due to prevailing circumstances they were foreseeing negative growth in the current year. It is imperative to provide relief, particularly in taxes, to the retail sector, the association urged.

Dr Shaikh said the government was keen to help the retail sector. He constituted a five-member committee to further discuss and firm up proposals to be offered by the RAP representatives before the next meeting when these suggestions would be finalise.

The committee would include senior officials from Finance Division and the FBR to sit with representatives of the retail sector and finalise proposals for providing relief to the retail sector, in the wake of prevailing situation.

Dr Shaikh directed the committee to follow a quick-action approach to decide the mechanism of support as the government wanted to alleviate the hardships being faced by the various sectors of economy.

Meanwhile in a meeting with leading businesses and industry representatives, Dr Shaikh said the government was trying its best to resolve the liquidity crunch, cash flow issues and allied problems being faced by the industry and businesses.

Work in this direction has already started with the release of more than Rs115 billion of sales tax and income tax refunds as well as duty drawbacks held up for years, the adviser said.

The meeting with industrialists and businessmen was also attended by Minister for Industries and Production Muhammad Hammad Azhar, Adviser to the Prime Minister on Commerce and Investment Abdul Razak Dawood and FBR Chairperson Nausheen Javaid Amjad.

An official statement said the adviser heard various proposals and suggestions from the businessmen to support and provide relief to the industries and assured them that the government would carefully and favourably study all the proposals and all the major issues faced by the industry and businesses would be resolved and a comprehensive relief package would be offered to the industry.

The adviser highlighted that the government had released Rs52bn of the claimed Rs57bn to exporters via the Faster system and Rs25bn out of the Rs52bn sales tax refunds for other sectors and industries. The remaining would also be cleared within next one week, he added.

Similarly, the government had also cleared about Rs30bn tax refunds under the DLT, while Rs15bn duty drawbacks had also been paid. Not only this, the government has also decided to pay within the next week all Income Tax refunds held up since 2014 and this measure alone would benefit nearly 100,000 taxpayers who would be paid over Rs50bn worth of refunds, he added.

The businessmen and industrialists called for an inclusive relief package that addressed the needs of the large-scale as well as SME sector.

Published in Dawn, April 17th, 2020