The Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) in Pakistan has again directed the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to process all cases of textile companies received by the Export-Oriented Sector Registration Cell (ESRC) from the trade bodies and associations on fast-track basis for availing concessionary tariff regime of electricity, gas and RLNG.

Referring to eight cases of leading textile mills, the FTO declared that ultimately most of the textile cases were forwarded by the FBR to the Commerce Ministry after the intervention of the FTO office.

According to the FTO’s order, the FBR is directed to ensure that all cases received by the ESRC from the trade/associations are processed on fast track, conducting proceedings on a day-to-day basis and cases of all genuine exporters (as per FBR record) are immediately forwarded to the Ministry of Commerce. The FBR's ESRC should strictly confine itself to the dictates of circular number 4 of 2020 and process the cases without any delay, forestalling any irretrievable loss to the exporters.The FBR has been also directed to ensure that the discrepancies if any observed by the ESCR during the processing may be shared with the concerned field formations without delaying the process.

The export sector is the lifeline for Pakistan’s economy.