Thursday, 21 September, 2012

ISLAMABAD

APP

THe Office of Federal TaxOmbudsman (FTO) in theyear 2011 made a sum of Rs7.89 billion refunds to thetaxpayers as compared to Rs

7.08 billion during 2010. According to theOffice of FTO statement, 2011 had been ahistoric year in several respects for the Of-fice of the Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO)Pakistan. “The exceptional achievements ofthe FTO have added new milestones to itshistory”, it added.

These included refunds amounting toRs 606 million in 455 income tax cases, Rs570 million in 107 sales tax cases, and Rs81 million in 15 customs cases. The highestamount of refund issued in a single incometax case, sales tax case and customs casewas Rs 143.31 million, Rs 143.7 million andRs 40.19 million respectively.

The statement further said that the tax-payers also received a sum of Rs 6.16 mil-lion in compensation for delayed paymentof refunds in 81 cases.

In addition, under his suo moto juris-diction, the FTO got settled 181,880 dutydraw-back customs cases involving refundsof Rs 6.63 billion during 2011 as against194,056 duty draw-back cases involving re-funds of Rs 4.9 billion in 2010.

It was worth noting that Rs 7.89 billionthat the taxpayers received due to the in-tervention of FTO during 2011 was almost4 times of the total amount that they gotduring 2000-2009, and 36 times of the av-erage per annum the taxpayers receivedduring the same ten-year period.

Another milestone that the FTO wasable to achieve during 2011 was in terms ofdisposal time of complaints.

The average time taken to decide acomplaint was exceptionally brought downto 60 days, as compared to 67 days for 2010and 117 days for 2009. There was no Om-budsman office in the world which hadachieved such a high level of efficiency inhandling taxpayers’ complaints.

Under his thematic approach, FTO de-clared 2011 as the ‘year of implementation’.

With exceptional effort,FTO’s decisions in asmany as7 6 0

cases got imple-mented by the Fed-eral Board of Revenueduring 2011, as com-pared to 331 cases during2010 and 170 cases during2009.

In other words, the numberof decisions got implemented dur-ing 2011 was 2.3 times as much asfor 2010. More specifically, the imple-mented decisions pertained to recom-mendations issued in 2011 (222), 2010(425), 2009 (48), 2008 (52), 2007 (6),2006 (2), 2005 (2), 2003 (1) and 2002 (2).

In 2011, the FTO received 1390 indi-vidual taxpayer complaints of which 706

(50.80%) pertained to income tax, 349(25.10%) to customs, 328 (23.60%) to salestax, and 7 (0.50%) to Federal excise Duty.Of these, 1218 (87.63%) complaints weredecided by 31st December 2011.

Of the decided complaints, 1053(86.45%) ended up in favor of taxpayers.

For the first time in the history of FTO,the taxpayers’ grievances in as many as 370complaints filed during 2011 were got re-dressed during the investigation phase.

The focus was shifted to getting the dis-putes resolved, from issuing Recommenda-tions at the end of investigation. Out of

Recommendation issued in 683 com-plaints during 2011, FBR imple-

mented 222

cases andfiled representations in 211

cases. In addition, 184 complaintspending from 2010 were also disposed

of by March 31, 2011. In early 2011 the FTO submitted the

`Container Scam’ investigation report tothe Supreme Court.

The scam turned out to be `mother ofall scams’.

The ongoing follow-up investigationled to detection of at least 28,802 commer-cial containers and a further 3,542 contain-ers imported in the name of ISAF/NATOthat went `missing’ during the period Jan-uary 2007 to October 2010, and the num-bers are still rising.

While the security-related aspects ofthe scam are yet to be quantified, the colos-sal loss of revenue, assuming that thesecontainers carried the usual smuggling-prone items, was estimated at over Rs 60billion.

The impact of FTO investigation onlocal industry, which was dying due to floodof `duty-free’ smuggled items, had beenphenomenal. Not only had the transit-re-lated `smuggling’ registered a staggeringdrop of 60 percent, the investigation wasyielding over Rs 1 billion per month in ad-ditional revenue due to diversion of smug-gling-prove items to regular importchannels. In a 2011 study conducted by theIslamic Countries Society of Statistical Sci-ences (ISOSS), a Lahore-based independ-ent research organization, over 90 percentof the respondents who had actually inter-acted with FTO rated FTO as most helpfuland most clean public sector organizationin Pakistan.

The advisors and staff of FTO deservegenerous appreciation for having achievedso high. One of the four organizations thatcontributed in improving Pakistan’s rankin 2011 was FTO Office, the other threebeing Public Accounts Committee of Par-liament, Judiciary, and the Ministry of De-fence for applying PPRA rules.

7th phase of Indo-Pak secretarylevel talks underway

ISLAMABAD

STAFF REPORT

Pakistan and India started seventhphase of secretary trade talks in Islam-abad on Thursday. Indian delegationheaded by SR Rao secretary of trademet with Pakistani delegation headedby Muneer Qureshi, secretary of min-istry of commerce and trade. Theyagreed to promote good trade relation-ship between both countries.Both the countries agreed to start theair service between Islamabad and NewDelhi.Muneer Qureshi said that conditionshave been changed between both thecountries. “Both countries have madeprogress to solve trade related andother issues. During two days talks wewill discuss how to end tariff and non-tariff trade barriers, how to expandtrade related infrastructure and how toovercome hurdles to start trade rela-tions”, he said we would also discussthe pathway to allow banks of twocountries to allow open branches inboth countries.Head of Indian delegation SR Rao saidon the occasion that according to WTOand World Bank analysis in near futureregional trade especially in South Asiawould progress.”Asia makes 50 percentof total population of the world. Wehave been striving hard to promotetrade between both countries”, he saidboth India and Pakistan were emerg-ing economies and this is our aim tobring the traders of both countriescloser. Detailed discussed three agreementsincluding agreement of cooperationand mutual assistance in customs mat-ter, bilateral cooperation agreementbetween Pakistan Standards and Qual-ity Control Authority of Science andTechnology and Butreau of IndianStandards ministry of Custom Affiar,Food and Public Distribution andAgreement on Redress of trade griev-ances, would be signed today(Friday).

POL completes project for oil, gas production

KARACHI

ONLINE

Pakistan Oilfields Ltd (POL) notifiedthat it had completed Bela-1 located inMeyal/Ucheri area that will producearound 100 barrels per day and 4-mil-lion-cubic-feet-per-day of oil and gas,respectively. According to company’s management,work over the project resulted in addi-tional hydrocarbon flows coming fromnew zones of Chorgali and Sakessar. It worthy mentioning here that discov-ery from Bela was previously an-nounced on March 16, 2010, when thefield came into production stage butlater faced operational issues.

FTO traces its zenithNew heights for Federal Tax Ombudsman

Fahim wants more trade with Mauritius… and Turkmenistan ISLAMABAD

APP/ONLINE

Federal Minister for CommerceMakhdoom Amin Fahim Thursdaystressed the need for enhancing Pakistan-Mauritius relations, particularly trade tiesto benefit both the countries.

Talking to the Deputy High Commis-sioner of Mauritius D. Prabhakar Gokuls-ing, the minister said that relationsbetween the two countries were importantand urged that both the sides should meetregularly to enhance these ties and boosttrade.

He said that although both the coun-tries were enjoying good trade relations butthere was still more scope which needed tobe tapped and observed that trade should

not be restricted to a few subjects. The min-ister termed the meeting as important andreferred to high level exchanges betweenthe two countries which had been useful increating better understanding betweengovernment and people Pakistan and Mau-ritius.

On the occasion, Prabhakar Gokulsing,said that building a relationship based onmutual respects was a fundamental need.He said that Mauritius provided good op-portunities for investors as about one mil-lion tourists visit Mauritius every year,making the country a potential market. ‘PAKISTAN TURKMENISTAN CAN

BOOST TRADE TIES’: Federal Ministerfor Commerce Makhdoom Amin Faheemsaid that there was much room for enhanc-ing trade volume between Pakistan and

Turkmenistan. He was speaking to theAmbassador of Turkmenistan AtadjanMovlamov who called on him at his officehere on Thursday The Federal Ministersaid that relations between Pakistan &Turkmenistan were important and theyshould meet regularly to enhance ties andtrade. He said that though we have goodtrade relations but there was still morescope. He cited this meeting to be very im-portant. The Federal Minister also referredto high level exchanges between both thecountries and said that they were very use-ful in creating better understanding be-tween government and people Pakistan &Turkmenistan. Ambassador said that fu-ture relations between Pakistan & Turk-menistan should be based on marketaccess and trade especially in context of

Turkmenistan as a transit country for Pak-istani products. Fed-eral Minister andthe Ambassa-dor ex-c h a n g e dviews onJoint Gov-e r n m e n tCommitteeMeeting to beheld betweenthe two coun-tries later thisyear in Pakistan.

Cement export posts20.38% growth

ISLAMABAD

APP

Cement export from the country duringthe first two month of current financialyear posted growth of 20.38 percent ascompared to the same period of lastyear.According to data of Pakistan Bureauof Statistics (PBS), about 1,154,554metric ton cement worth $ 91.356 mil-lion was exported during the periodfrom July to August 2012 as againstthe export of 1,457,677 metric tonscosting $ 75.891 million in same periodof last year Cement export from the countryrecorded 11.80 percent during themonth of August as compared to ex-port of last month as about 609,429metric ton cement valuing $ 45.159million during the period under reviewas compared to the export of 545,125metric ton worth $ 46.197 million dur-ing the month of July 2012.During the period from July-August2012, the export of gems and jewelryregistered growth of 35.34 percent and156.45 percent respectively as about 2metric tons of gems worth $ 0.540 mil-lion exported as against 1 metric tonsvaluing $ 0.339 million of same periodlast year, it revealed.Meanwhile, jewellary worth $ 339.76million exported during the first twomonths of current financial year ascompared to $ 132.48 million duringsame period of last year.However, the export of furniture re-mained on down track and decreasedby 29.35 percent during the first twomonth of current financial year whereas handicraft exports remain stagnant.The data further revealed that the ex-port of molasses registered 7.29 per-cent growth as 1,923 metric tons ofmolasses costing $ 0.265 million ex-ported as against 2,025 metric tons of$ 0.247 million same period last year.

ISLAMABAD

APP

Food imports into the country witnesseddecrease of 9.02 percent during the firsttwo months of the current fiscal year ascompared to the corresponding period oflast year. The food imports into the coun-try were recorded at $818.011 millionduring July-August (2012-13) against theimports of $899.062 million recordedduring July-August (2011-12), accordingto the data of Pakistan Bureau of Statis-tics released here.

The major products that contributedin negative growth included tea, importsof which decreased by 24.72 percent dur-ing the period under review.

Tea imports into the country wererecorded at $42.541 million in July-Au-gust (2012-13) against the imports of$56.512 million during July-August

(2011-12). Imports of spices decreased by8.71 percent by falling from $14.863 mil-lion to $13.568 million whereas the im-ports of palm oil decreased by 12.22percent by going down from $466.360million to $409.360 million.

Imports of sugar were recorded at$1.334 million during the period underreview against the imports of $6.160 mil-lion last year, showing negative growth of78.34 percent. On the other hand, thefood items that witnessed positive growthincluded milk, cream and milk food forinfants, imports of which increased from$28.602 million last year to $34.545 mil-lion during current year, showing growthof 20.78 percent.

The imports of dry fruits and nuts in-creased by 6.48 percent by growing from$15.767 million to $16.788 millionwhereas the imports of soyabean oil in-creased from $24.343 million to $29.755

million, showing increase of 22.23 per-cent. Similarly, the imports of pulses(leguminous vegetables) increased from$83.823 million to $93.293 million,showing increase of 11.30 percent.

Meanwhile, the imports of all otherfood items decreased by 12.73 percent bygoing down from $202.632 million inJuly-August (2011-12) to $176.827 mil-lion in July-August (2012-13), the PBSdata revealed.

Meanwhile, during the month ofAugust 2012-13 the food imports intothe country witnessed decrease of 12.71percent and 11.50 percent when com-pared to the imports of August 2011 andJuly 2012 respectively.

Food imports in August 2012 stoodat $384.064 million against the importsof $439.965 million and $433.947 mil-lion in August 2011 and July 2012 re-spectively.

Serious food for thoughtFood imports decrease by over 9% in two months

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02

Friday, 21 September, 2012

Major Gainers

COMPANY OPEN HIGH LOW CLOSE CHANGE TURNOVERNestle Pakistan Ltd. 4100.00 4150.00 4150.00 4150.00 50.00 20Siemens Pakistan 919.07 954.99 954.99 954.99 35.92 50Colgate 1066.99 1101.00 1066.99 1100.00 33.01 300Bata (Pak) Limited 950.51 995.00 950.02 977.75 27.24 650Island Textile 280.00 294.00 294.00 294.00 14.00 300

Major LosersRafhan Maize Prod. 4451.44 4397.00 4397.00 4397.00 -54.44 5,020Pak Gum & Chemical 222.07 221.20 210.97 211.05 -11.02 3,500Atlas BatteryXDXB 267.14 263.00 255.60 256.50 -10.64 2,400Pak Oilfields 438.66 438.00 429.80 430.70 -7.96 983,600Exide (PAK) 333.15 327.00 323.00 325.65 -7.50 2,300

Volume Leaders

P.T.C.L.A 19.87 19.90 18.95 19.02 -0.85 16,150,000K.E.S.C. 7.65 7.77 6.65 6.65 -1.00 14,559,500NIB Bank Limited 2.64 2.80 2.61 2.63 -0.01 13,618,500Invest Bank 0.85 1.22 0.85 1.05 0.20 5,450,000IGI Inv.Bank 2.17 2.73 2.20 2.58 0.41 4,725,000

Interbank RatesUS Dollar 94.5118UK Pound 152.9768Japanese Yen 1.2095Euro 122.2888

Dollar EastBUY SELL

US Dollar 94.50 95.00Euro 121.56 122.52Great Britain Pound 152.17 153.33Japanese Yen 1.1964 1.2054Canadian Dollar 95.71 96.94Hong Kong Dollar 12.00 12.16UAE Dirham 25.63 25.80Saudi Riyal 25.12 25.25Australian Dollar 97.28 99.48

Business

Renowned cosmetic company

introduces New Graphique

Eyeliner and Pro Dip Eyeliner

LAHORE: Color Studio professional, continues itsproduct expansion with the launch of its graphiqueeye liner and Pro Dip eye liner, which comes in es-sential and wearable shades.

Fair & Lovely Fairness Experts

Program launched in Karachi

KARACHI: Pakistan’s leading fairness cream Fair &Lovely recently launched Fair & Lovely Fairness ex-perts, a program with successive workshops to createawareness and educate mid tier level beauty parlor own-ers on solutions for skin problems and their treatments.

Etihad Airways sponsored “This is My Life” fundraiser

concert held in Islamabad on September 15 to coincide with

International Aids Day. Renowned Romanian music singer

Vika Jigulina and her team performing at the concert.

“Bramerz Pakistan, in association with Google and Ufone,

organized a Prelaunch Olaround, VP Business and Partner,

Amer Sarfraz, Google Representative in Pakistan Badar

Khushnood along with Jana Levene and William Fitzgerald

from Google, were seen at “Preview Ceremony” to

introduce the first online, “Location-based Loyalty Service”

in Pakistan, called Olaround, that runs on mobile devices.

Early completion of water, power

projects priority: WAPDA Chairman

LAHORE: Besides initiating new projects in waterand hydropower sectors, completion of the under-construction projects in shortest possible time was theforemost priority of the present management of thePakistan Water and Power Development Authority.

JS Investments Limited, CEO, Rashid Mansur hosted a

lunch event in honor of the Ambassador of the

Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Babur Hizlan, State Bank

of Pakistan, Governor, Yaseen Anwar and SECP,

Chairman, Muhammad Ali.

New car buyers put

Porsche 911 in first place

KARACHI: In its latest survey, J.D Power and As-sociates, the American market research institute,has issued a solid-gold certificate again to Porsche.

Ayesha Khurram eyes

bridal market

LAHORE: Renowned designer Ayesha Khurramwhose pop-art inspired kurtas and Marilyn Monroedesign have catapulted her into popularity is nowturning her sights towards the bustling bridal mar-ket and launching a full fledge bridal studio, thefirst of its kind in Lahore.

From left to right: McDonald’s Pakistan, President & CEO,

Amin Mohammed Lakhani, McDonald’s Pakistan, Director

Marketing & Development, Jamil Ahmed Mughal at the

inauguration ceremony of McDonald’s Restaurant at

Caltex Gas Station on Korangi Road, DHA Phase 1.

Thinking outside the telecom box

KARACHI: USF, Former CeO, Pervez Iftikhar pre-sented his ideas regarding “Information Communi-cation Technology (ICT) For Schools”. He deliveredhis presentation at 12th ITCN Asia Int’l exhibitionand Conferences, Telecom Strategy Summit.

UBL Omni offers service for

the first time in Pakistan

KARACHI: United Bank Limited’s BranchlessBanking Division, Omni introduced a unique serv-ice for the first time in Pakistan which enables acustomer opening an Omni account to get an ATMCard instantly right at the time of account opening.

Ufone’s exciting offer

for cricket lovers

ISLAMABAD: Ufone recently launched a new offerfor the cricket loving nation. The offer comes filledwith tons of minutes along with tons of runs, to be en-joyed in the T20 World Cup to be hosted in Sri Lanka.

Annual LACAS SONDHI debating

challenge goes international!

LAHORE: The annual Sondhi Debating Challengeof LACAS was the first Parliamentary debate com-petition that followed the World School style debat-ing format. This year, LACAS became the firstschool in Pakistan’s history to introduce the na-tional debate circuit on an international platformthrough participation from our neighbors acrossboth sides of Pakistani borders.

CORPORATE CORNER

HONG KONG

AFP

Asian markets eased back on Thursday afterthe previous day’s impressive gains, whileeyes were on the release later in the day ofChina manufacturing data. Also weighing onsentiment in Japan were figures showing theeconomy recorded its second straightmonthly trade deficit in August owing toslipping exports caused by a worldwideslowdown. Tokyo fell 0.45 percent, HongKong slipped 0.35 percent, Sydney lost 0.28percent, Seoul was 0.37 percent lower and

Shanghai gave up 0.55 percent.Global indices climbed on Wednesday,

with Tokyo and Sydney hitting four-monthhighs, after the Japanese central bank saidit would extend an asset-purchase schemeas it tries to jumpstart the domestic econ-omy. The move followed similar bond-buy-ing plans by the US Federal Reserve and theeuropean Central Bank, which helped sendequities soaring. However, investors steppedback Thursday, with no fresh news to spurbuying, as they await the preliminary pur-chasing managers index (PMI) on Chinesemanufacturing activity from HSBC.

The figures will be keenly watched asthey will provide an updated outlook on theChinese economy, which has suffered aslowdown this year owing to tightening de-mand for its exports in the crucial europeanand US markets.

In forex markets the dollar — whichbriefly topped 79.00 yen after the BoJ an-nouncement before easing to 78.36 yen bythe end of New York trade — bought 78.35yen Thursday in Asia.

The euro was at $1.3034 from $1.3049and at 102.14 yen from 102.24 yen. It hadsurged to 103.50 yen at one point after the

BoJ move Wednesday.Japan had a trade deficit of 754.1 billion

yen ($9.6 billion) in August, smaller thanthe year-before deficit of 777.5 billion yenbut bigger than the deficit of 518.9 billionyen for July.

“The size of the deficit was within expec-tations, but it increased from the previousmonth and underlines the difficult economicenvironment overseas,” said Junko Nish-ioka, chief economist at RBS SecuritiesJapan, according to Dow Jones Newswires.

On Wall Street Wednesday sharesclimbed after the National Association of

Realtors announced existing home salesacross the country leaped 7.8 percent fromJuly to a two-year high, and were up 9.3 per-cent from a year ago.

The Dow added 0.10 percent, the S&P500 rose 0.12 percent and the tech-heavyNasdaq added 0.15 percent.

Oil prices rose, with New York’s maincontract, light sweet crude for delivery inOctober, adding 11 cents to $92.09 a barreland Brent North Sea crude for Novemberdelivery gaining 43 cents to $108.62.

Gold was at $1,771.55 at 0210 GMTcompared with $1,772.41 on Tuesday.

EaSy doES itAsian markets eased back ahead of China data

ISLAMABAD

ONLINE

THe leadership ofSAARC Chamber ofCommerce & Indus-try (SAARC CCI) hashailed the Govern-

ment of Pakistan and India for ex-hibiting strong commitment toboost socio-economic cooperationby convening series of talks onpolitico-economic level, which willhelp boost the morale of entireSouth Asia.

Vikramjit Singh Sahney, thePresident of SAARC CCI termedthe recent and fast track develop-ment as a reflection of the serious-ness of the leadership of bothcountries, which will ensure theaccelerated economic cooperationbetween India and Pakistan.

“For last two years, much im-provement has been witnessed onpolitical and economic fronts,

which has broken the inertia andre-energized South Asia to take co-ordinated efforts for the economicwell-being of the people” said Sah-ney and hoped that by end of thecurrent year, the Government ofPakistan will grant MFN Status toIndia and adopt negative list ap-proach allowing import of allitems from India. He urged for im-mediate implementation ofthe crucial trade agree-ments signed betweentwo countries on Sep-tember 21, 2012.

Tariq Sayeed,former President ofSAARC CCI andFPCCI also laudedthe efforts of theboth the Govern-ments and reiteratedfor continuation of talksand dialogues, regardingthem as the strongest tools toaddress both softer and core

issues. “Last two years are thegolden years of the history of bothcountries as many milestones havebeen achieved i.e. considerableimprovement in list of importeditem from India from 1938 to5600, ICP at Wagha Border, al-lowing investment to Pakistani en-terprises by India, new Visa Policyand above all signing of trade

agreements” saidSayeed.

Iftikhar AliMalik, Vice

P r e s i d e n tSAARC CCIsaid that im-p l e m e n t a -tion of theagreements

related tocustoms coop-

eration, mutualrecognition of re-

quired standards andthe mechanism to

address grievances will help boosttrade between the two countriesmanifold and new Visa Policy willhelp deepen socio-economic inte-gration of the society.

Iqbal Tabish, Secretary Gen-eral, SAARC CCI said that thecomplete phasing out of the nega-tive list and removal of non-tariffbarriers (NTBs) by India will pro-vide level play filed for both coun-tries, however, based oncomparative and absolute advan-tage Indian exporters will begreatly benefitted.” No harm inopen trade with India , as it wouldsave $ 1.50 billion if such productsnot manufactured at all in Pak-istan are imported from India ”said SG, SAARC CCI and addedthat discussion on issues of phas-ing out of a negative list and pref-erential arrangements underSouth Asia Free Trade Area(SAFTA) would help foster re-gional economic cooperation.

‘Improved Indo-Pak trade to boost South Asian morale’

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