ISLAMABAD: The government has exempted all appraisers and taxpayers for 3 months for the assessment of 61 and personal protective equipment (PPPs) or imports of personal protective equipment to reduce rising prices in the local market. can go.
For this purpose, the government also allowed $ 4 million to be used to purchase corona virus protection equipment not yet used in the World Bank project.
The decision to waive the duty came through three different notifications issued by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), SRO 235, SRO 236 and SRO 237.
Due to the increasing cases of Corona virus in Pakistan, the decision was awaited due to the decline in the local market of these goods, especially PPEs.
The Federal Government has removed $ 4 million worth of unused funds from World Bank plans to purchase equipment for the Corona virus, Minister of Economic Affairs Hamad Azhar said on a social relations website Twitter. Approved for $ 75 million in Punjab, $ 1 million in Sindh, $ 70 million in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, $ 20 million in Balochistan and $ 35 million from the center.
He made it clear that these funds were not allocated by the federal government among the provinces, but rather that the unused funds in the provinces were used for other purposes only by those provinces.
According to the notification issued, the government exempted the import of PPEs such as garments, masks, gloves, lenses and headgear caps from customs duty, regulatory duty, additional customs duty, sales tax and withholding tax.
It should be noted that customs duty on these items was already modest but standard sales tax was imposed on 17% of the imports and income tax was imposed from 4.5 to 5%.
According to the notification, the government has given Powdered Purifying Respirators, Nitrile Gloves, Latex Gloves, Goggles, Face Shield, Gunboats, Macintosh Bed Sheets, Surgical Masks, Multi-Mode Ventilator with Air Compressor, Vital Sign Money with 21 bp. Eliminate duties and taxes on imports of motorized beds with cabinets and upper tables, syringe infusion pumps, infusion pumps and electric suction machines.
In addition, the government will also ban the export of medical devices and notification of export of masks has not been issued by the Ministry of Commerce till now.
The draft of the notification is still with the law department while customs officials have stopped exporting masks on a letter from the Drug Regulatory Authority.
In addition, the Ministry of Commerce will also have to ensure availability of 99.9% pure ethanol per 100,000 liters per month and for this purpose local manufacturers will be consulted for mass production of ethanol-made hand sanitizers