Facilitation: Customs working to assist exporters

Chief collector says system is being made less complicated.

KARACHI: Customs Chief Collector (Enforcement South), Muhammad Nazim Salim has said the system of customs has been made less complicated and the customs examinations are being carried out in the shortest possible time to facilitate exporters.

The department is also marking minimum number of containers for examination, he added.

He said this in a meeting with representatives of the Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturers Association (PHMA) at its office on Wednesday.

He offered the participants to provide details of their consignment in case goods of any of the exporters have been damaged during examination in November 2014 so that the department can resolve the issue amicably.

Salim assured that the issues and problems of the value-added textile exporters would be resolved on a priority basis.



He emphasised that exporters are clients of the terminal operators whose duty is to take care of export goods and to save these from being damaged and also repack them in their original packing.

He said that all terminal operators will try to provide all possible facilities including skilled labour to properly handle and repack textile goods after examination.

PHMA Chairman Muhammad Babar Khan lamented that the exporters are suffering due to the delays in payment of their customs rebate claims, which is also causing a liquidity crunch especially at a time when the exporters are facing stiff competition in the global markets.

He said that the exporters are working hard to ensure that shipments are made on time as per the deadlines of the buyers. They try to ensure that the containers reach the desired ports on time but owing to several adverse factors like load shedding, energy and water shortages, exporters face  unnecessary problems.

Pakistan Apparel Forum Chairman Muhammad Jawed Bilwani said that due to rising cost of doing business in Pakistan, the margin of profit has shrunk significantly in the last few years.

He said that owing to these problems, several export-oriented industries have been compelled to close down in recent years.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 4^th, 2014.

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