Govt committed to resolve liquidity crunch, cash flow issues of industry: Hafeez

F.P. Report

ISLAMABAD: Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance and Revenue, Dr. Abdul Hafeez Shaikh Thursday expressed government’s commitment to resolve the liquidity crunch, cash flow and other allied issues being faced by the industry and businesses.

Chairing a meeting-cum-video conference, arranged at the Finance Division, with leading industrialists and businessmen of the country, the advisor said that work in this direction had already started by releasing more than Rs115 billion of the sales tax and income tax refunds as well as duty drawbacks held up for years.

Minister for Industries and Production, Muhammad Hammad Azhar, Adviser to the Prime Minister on Commerce and Investment, Abdul Razak Dawood, Chairperson Federal Board of Revenue Ms Nausheen Javaid Amjad and senior officials of the Finance Division were also present.

During the conference, Hafeez Shaikh heard various proposals and suggestions from the businessmen to support and provide relief to the industries and assured the participants 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.

He told the meeting that the government had released Rs52 billion of the claimed Rs57 billion to exporters through the FASTER system and Rs25 billion out of the Rs52 billion sales tax refunds for other sectors and industries while the remaining would also be cleared within next one week.

Similarly, the government had also cleared about Rs30 billion tax refunds under the DLT, while Rs15 billion 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 Rs50 billion worth of refunds,” he added.

Earlier, the businessmen and industrialists, giving their proposals and suggestions, called for an inclusive relief package that addressed the needs of the large-scale as well as SME sectors.