MULTAN, June 2nd: All the members of the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association(PCGA) have unanimously decided to shut the ginning operation till the acceptance of their demands and redressal of their grievance. Chairman of PCGA Mian Muhammad Javed Suhail Rehmani said that it was not possible to keep their factories operating in the current situation.He appealed to Federal Government to waive the mark up of January Ist to June 30,2020 on their loans for the survival of the ginning industry. He said that the Government should take a line of action to ensure the stuck up recovery of 25 to 30 billion rupees from the Textile millers. Trading Corporation of Pakistan(TCP) must be activated to procure the unsold cotton stock of 0.5 million bales so that ginners could be able to purchase "Phutti" from the growers in next season. Rehmani reiterated his demand to implement the decision of Economic Coordination Committee of Federal Cabinet to rebate in General Sales tax on oil-cake (Khal), issue of withholding tax refunds which are hanging for the last ten years must be resolved because ginners are facing liquidity crunch these days due to pandemic coronavirus which had paralysed the entire economy. He demanded abolishing the 10% sales tax on cotton besides introducing uniform power tariffs for ginning industry and textile mills. Payment of bank guarantees and markup must be deferred for the period of one year.PCGA chairman said that State Bank should ask all the commercial banks to allow the ginners to dispose of their remaining stock on credit so that ginners could get adjust their limits, There must be exemption of sales, income and other taxes on the unsold stock of cotton so that this stock could easily be disposed of .Chairman said that decision to impose double excise duty on cotton be withdrawn in Sindh by provincial Government, Duty-free import of palm oil cake(Khal) must be stopped for the survival of producers of oil-seed cake.He vowed to continue their closure till the acceptance of their demands.He made it clear that we have no political motive behind this protest. Instead,we are protesting for our survival.
