The Lahore Chamber of Commerce & Industry Wednesday organized an awareness session on “Export Facilitation Scheme-2021” in collaboration with the Collectorate of Customs (Appraisement) to give members the information needed regarding the new Export Facilitation Scheme.
President of the LCCI Kashif Anwar presented the welcome address while Senior Vice President LCCI Zafar Mehmood Ch, Secretary FBR, Saqib-ur-Rehman, Additional Collector Customs Falak Shair and Assistant Collector Customs Humera Javaid also spoke on the occasion.
The LCCI Executive Committee, exporters, members, and individuals from many walks of life were all present during the session.
In his address, LCCI President Kashif Anwar stated that the solution to the country’s biggest economic problem, the current account imbalance, is to increase exports.
“We welcome the introduction of the Export Facilitation Scheme by FBR’ he said, adding that through this scheme, the exporters, especially the SMEs, will be able to significantly increase the country’s exports. At present, the share of SMEs in the country’s GDP is 40%, but due to the lack of adequate facilities, the share of SMEs in the country’s exports is significantly low, he lamented.
Kashif Anwar noted that many of our exporters are facing difficulties in clearance of their Export Remittances and asked the FBR to play its role in this regard so that the problems of the exporters can be removed.
Additional Collector Customs Falak Shair said that the government wants to promote the exports of every sector of the industry, that is why the government has launched the Export Facilitation Scheme. He said Customs has nominated a focal person for the Lahore Chamber who will be present at LCCI to give information and facilitation about the scheme to the members.
Speaking at the event, Secretary FBR Saqib-ur-Rehman said that all the schemes issued previously to support the exports failed to do so as only 1,000 major exporters were using the export facilitation schemes out of total 15,000 major exporters due to the bottlenecks and complexity in the schemes. ‘With this in mind, the Export Facilitation Scheme was introduced which is very user-friendly, based on one single documentation and anyone can benefit from it’ he said.
Rehman Informed that all other schemes issued previously would be merged in the new Export Facilitation Scheme, the features of the scheme will remain the same while all the other export related schemes will be closed in August. He said the FBR is pushing the business community to join this scheme and working on a daily basis to make this scheme a success.
Senior Vice President LCCI Zafar Mehmood Ch informed the gathering that LCCI is doing its best to increase the exports of the country. ‘For this purpose we have established an ‘Export Counter’ in the Lahore Chamber’ he said adding LCCI organizes an Export Trophy every year to encourage the exporters besides, seminars and training programs are also being organized for the training of exporters.
