ISLAMABAD (February 01 2003) : Taking a major step to boost the export of pharmaceutical products, the government on Friday announced duty drawback facility for all local and multinational pharmaceutical companies through standardisation to provide level playing field for the entire industry.
Now, duty drawback facility would be available on the export of thousands of medicines including veterinary drugs, tablets/capsules, liquids/suspension, creams/ ointment, injections and intravenous solutions from January 31, 2003.
The pharmaceutical companies would now have an opportunity to expand their trade base by introducing these products in the global market.
This would also encourage local companies to actively participate in the export of pharmaceutical products.
The Central Board of Revenue (CBR) has also withdrawn duty drawback facility from certain individual pharmaceutical companies, as there was no need to give specific rebate in the presence of standard SRO wherein raw materials were categorised in three major slabs ie active raw materials, auxiliary raw materials and packing materials.
The CBR has issued standard SRO 112(I)/2003 after consensus among Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PPMA) and Input Output Coefficient Organisation (IOCO), Karachi.
IOCO conducted survey of various pharmaceutical units to standardise the duty drawback rates on the request of PPMA.
The repayment of duty would be 4.15 percent of the fob value on the export of tablets/capsules; liquids/syrups 2.50 percent of the fob value, creams/ointment 2.62 percent of the fob value; injections/injectables 3.31 percent of the fob value and duty drawback would be 2.04 percent of the fob value on the export of intravenous solutions.
The duty drawback facility would be available to the exporters if the imported input raw material of the export goods were in line with the contents mentioned on the printed packaging material of the product like labels, show box, cartons, stickers etc as approved by the Ministry of Health.
Sources told Business Recorder that the department was trying for the last many years to issue a standard SRO for the whole pharmaceutical industry, but the lengthy list of raw materials and their complicated specifications restricted the authorities from giving duty drawback to specific companies.
Now, the CBR has managed to issue a general broad category of input materials and the facility has been extended to the entire sector.
