KARACHI: The commercial import of paper products will become 4 percent costlier due to price increase in the international market besides minimum 4 percent withholding tax on commercial imports.
Senior member of All Pakistan Paper Merchants Association (APPMA), Rauf Ansari talking to Daily Times said on Monday that the increase in the prices of paper and paperboard will affect the local price of notebooks, copies, textbooks and office stationery.
The commercial importers were paying a minimum of 25 percent more on imports and now the actual cost has been increased to 30 percent, he added. Country imports around 75,000 tonnes paper products of all kinds annually.
He said that while under custom tariff, paper is treated as finished goods under section (X) chapter 48 of Pakistan Customs Tariff, at high customs duty slab, at the rate of 20 percent to 25 percent, while in Customs Policy, raw material is at 10 percent or zero rate duty slab.
He said the sales tax would increase the import cost by around Rs 7 per kg on all kinds of paper.
He said, "We import paper and duplex box paper from Indonesia, China, Finland, UK, Belgium and other countries to meet our domestic requirements, while local mills cater to around 65 percent of our requirements."
Ansari said around 60 percent imported material is used for making office stationery and high-grade paper products and imported cardboards cater to around 35 percent of our needs.
He said around 27 percent imported material is used for making notebooks and high quality paperbacks books while more than 55 percent local paper is used in making secondary and higher secondary school books.
The government imposed the regulatory duty on coated board to the tune of 15 percent in order to provide some relief to the manufacturing sector, he added.
He said the international cost of finished paper, coated and uncoated paper comes to around $900 per tonne and $600 per tonne respectively. The domestic rise in the price will be of Rs 2,500 per tonne to Rs 68,000 per tonne on paper used for school books and register etc, Rs 3,000 per tonne to Rs 68,000 per tonne on fine paper used for photography and notebooks and Rs 3,000 per tonne to Rs 51,000 per tonne on paper used for school books etc, he added.
Similarly around Rs 3,000 per tonne to Rs 55,000 per tonne would be the increase in duplex box paper.
The price of lower quality and normal paper increased from Rs 48,300 to Rs 54,000 per tonne, which is used in the production of copies and other items. The price of fine quality paper used in different value-added products has increased to Rs 63,000 from Rs 54,000 per tonne, up by almost 16 percent.
The surge in the basic raw material of books and copies would definitely increase the prices of these items in the academic session, which will restart in mid-August in Sindh and mid-September in Punjab. |
