Pakistan to Abolish, Reduce Taxes for IT Imports as Part of Information Technology Agreement

The Information Technology Agreement (ITA) is currently signed by 54 World Trade Organization (WTO) members and Pakistani Government is considering to join the pack.

As part of being a signatory to ITA, the local manufacturing companies stand to benefit from the arrangement because complying with the agreement means abolishing or reducing the taxes and duties on import of IT related products from overseas.

This agreement, if signed, is going to greatly impact the local manufacturing industry of Pakistan.

The Engineering Development Board (EDB) in this regards was tasked to prepare a study to help government better understand the agreement and also to advise if Pakistan should sign the agreement or not.

According to Engineering Development Board website, it supports ITA and has proposed the government to sign the agreement as it is ultimately going to benefit the country.

Overall, this can trigger a change in Pakistan’s IT sector.  It will make it attractive to import IT equipment in bulk, including PCs and their peripherals, mobile/ smart phones & tablets. Technology can be promoted at a much cheaper price across Pakistan and increase its usage which is one of ITA’s sole objective.

Further information can be found about ITA and its benefits on EDB’s website.

It maybe recalled that Pakistan already offers tax holiday for IT exports and it intends to keep the tax exemption for IT exports till 2019.

Via: Phoneworld.com

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        • happy for you bro , @ashfaquekhatti:disqus

          care to guide me a bit on how you managed to do that :) ?

              • I asked seller to mention it as MP3 Player and mark low price on the packaging, so gets processed easily at custom. (and my Mi 5 can genuinely play mp3. (lol)).

                I had placed my order before PTA banned Xiaomi to do smartphone business in Pakistan. it might not work now.

                Be advised to be cautious to order Xiaomi Mi 5 or any Xiaomi-product.

                I purchased it from aliexpress. so not sure to say anything on other on-line stores…

                • how about other phones like Meizu and co. (they also possess the capability to perfectly play MP3 as well :p)

                  can i know how much price did the seller mark on the phone? please do tell , this could be very helpful for me.

        • Let us know what procedure you did for it. It is currently for $280 at geek buying 3/32 gb version.

        • I asked seller to mention it as MP3 Player and mark low price on the packaging, so gets processed easily at custom. (and my Mi 5 can genuinely play mp3. (lol)).

          I had placed my order before PTA banned Xiaomi to do smartphone business in Pakistan. it might not work now.

          Be advised to be cautious to order Xiaomi Mi 5 or any Xiaomi-product.

          I purchased it from aliexpress. so not sure to say anything on other on-line stores…

  • WAIT !

    i can FINALLY import a chinese smartphone WITHOUT paying any of the DAMN Customs Tax ?!?!

    oh BOYYY … HOW SOON CAN I DO THIS !!!

  • It would have been smarter to allow import of COMPONENTS for free and not FINISHED PRODUCTS. With Components local companies can start building facilities for assembly of mobile devices, etc etc. But because many final products are now imported without duties, why would anyone bother to set up assembly plants and hire Pakistani workers?

    Another example of destruction of local industry by PMLN

    • If lower duties were to lead to deindustrialization, none of the Asian tigers could emerge. Currently 82 countries, representing about 97 per cent of world trade in IT products, are members of Information Technology Agreement. Pakistan and some African countries are the only one who believe that by keeping duties on IT hardware, someone will set up assembly plants here. We have been waiting for 20 years and it has not happened.

      • Difference is they adopted ITA and lower duties AFTER THEY ALREADY HAD FACTORIES AND CUSTOMERS.

        How can we bootstrap our local industry when it costs just shipping + their cost to get everything from China?

        • India joined the ITA in 1997 and since then several other developing countries such as Egypt, Indonesia, Philippines, etc who are at the same or lower level of industrialization have become members of ITA Our reason for not joining was that we have a telephone industry at Haripur and if tariff protection is removed, it may not be able to compete. Despite huge protection, it has closed. I am not sure if we produce any other item listed in the ITA. Our choice is to stay outside as many African countries are or to become a part of the ITA club whose members account for 97% of trade in IT goods. Limiting access to IT products such as computers is to keep our people backwards and our industry uncompetitive.

  • Can anyone please clarify my confusion ?

    I want to import raspberry Pi Boards from Germany.

    There will be any custom Tax on 10 Items package ?

    There will be any custom Tax on 100 Items package ?

    Thanks :)


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