LAHORE: The Pakistan Customs has grown by record 29.6 percent during first half of Fiscal Year 2017-18 against 22.6 percent growth during first half of Fiscal Year 2017.
According to data the custom duty collection grew by 29.6 percent, on top of 22.6 percent growth in first half of Fiscal Year 2017, which can be traced to increase in regulatory duty on a number of non-essential consumer items, which was primarily aimed at curtailing imports to address external sector imbalance.
It was added that the recovery in sales tax collection was even sharper, rising by 18.9 percent during first half of Fiscal Year 2018 against a decline of 0.2 percent in the same period of last year. It was further added that the surge in sales tax collection can be attributed to increase in the prices of petroleum products in line with trends in international market and higher sales volume. Moreover, increase in the overall sales activity commensurate with the growing economy is evident from higher consumption of cement, steel, automobiles, electronics, etc.