KARACHI, Jan 28: Adviser to Prime Minister on Finance Shaukat Tarin said on Wednesday that instructions had already been issued to the State Bank to pay research and development (R&D) support claims for shipments made up to June 30, 2008.

In a meeting with the leaders of the apparel industry in Islamabad the adviser assured the exporters that he would follow up the matter with the State Bank for early payment of such claims. Minister for Textile Industry Rana Farooq Saeed Khan was also present in the meeting.The details of the meeting were provided to Dawn on telephone by M Naqi Bari, chairman Pakistan Apparel Forum.

He informed the meeting that the then minister for finance Syed Naveed Qamar had assured the continuation of R&D support to the apparel sector up to June 30, 2009. Upon this assurance the exporters made their export commitments by taking into consideration the R&D support but are still waiting for payment of their claims.

Mr Bari pointed out that as a result a large number of export houses have suffered huge losses and are now unable to meet their export commitments due to liquidity crunch.

Mr Tarin assured to look into the issue and find out as to what could be done to save such exporters from huge financial losses.Regarding multiple collection of taxes from apparel exporters the prime minister adviser on finance told the representatives of member associations of apparel forum that he would be holding a meeting with all the stakeholders of the textile sector, including spinning, weaving, processing, home textile and apparels in the first week of next month in Karachi and after consultation a decision will be taken there.

Shaukat Tarin agreed with the exporters that the higher cost of export financing up to 7.5 per cent was rendering products uncompetitive in the world market.

He said that the value-added textile exporters, who are not defaulters of short-term export refinance for the last three years should be rewarded.

He further said that such exporters should be entitled for long-term financing equal to the extent of the amount of export refinance Part-II at the rate of 3 per cent per annum to enable them to upgrade their manufacturing facilities on the pattern of technology upgrading programme of India.

However, he said all these issues are already under consideration of the government, which may also include used machinery to be financed against Long Term Finance facility. The government, he said, will also consider special arrangements for the apparel sector with trickle down benefits to the whole chain of textile.

The adviser assured the apparel leaders that the textile industry would be given priority while considering reduction in gas and power charges in future and will be provided gas and power at competitive rates.

Mr Tarin said that the government had given the highest priority to the duty-free market access to US, EU and Canada and these efforts will surely pay dividend.