Mobile Phone Makers Urge FBR To Honour Commitments
Staff Report
The Pakistan Mobile Phone Manufacturers Association (PMPMA) has asked the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to honour the commitments made by the government to the investors and the tariff structures for mobile phones should not be enhanced.
In a recent meeting with FBR the delegation of PMPMA submitted their concerns that enhancing tariffs would not only hit the localization schedule but the targets for export of mobile phones from Pakistan too would suffer.
The delegation has apprised the officials that the implementation of an 18 percent sales tax on all mobile phones assembled in the country would be a serious blow to the whole industry.PTA drafts rules for local mobile manufacturing
The Mobile Device Manufacturing Policy 2020 granted exemption to the phone sets up to the price range of $350 from 18 percent sales tax, while the sets above this price range were charged the complete sales tax.
The Association stated that the majority of local companies assemble phone sets in this range that account for around 55 percent of smartphones used in the country.
Mian Abdul Rehman chairman of PMPMA talking to media here on Wednesday said that still around 40 percent of phone sets in the country were feature phones and there was a need to expand smartphone usage to around 80 percent.
“What we have asked the authorities is to consider the fact that this industry was still as a basic stage as soon after the policy was launched the world economy was hit by Covid19 and it was followed by LC crises in the Pakistan” Mr Rehman added, “The sales tax exemption on the locally assembled sets should otherwise the price of sets will rise significantly as a result the grey markets of mobile phones will increase in the country.”
He added that Pakistan need to move ahead with the prevalence of 80 -90 smartphone usage as it also helps generate employment and earning opportunities.
Meanwhile, PMPMA senior member Zeeshan Miannoor added that Pakistan needed conducive policies to promote local assembly of phones at a large scale to support exports also.
“Besides Pakistan has to streamline the tariff structures in support of spare part and raw material imports, but the current structure benefits the CBU imports,” Mian Abdul Rehman chairman of PMPMA said.
He added that localization was suffering only because there was around a 50 percent tax rate for the import of raw materials such as cables, coils etc, whereas the import of finished accessories including charges, hands-free, Bluetooth, etc are at zero tax rate.
“The raw material imports have to be zero rated while the complete products need to be taxed,” Miannoor added.
