The Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers’ Association (PPMA) has appealed to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to immediately withdraw the 17 percent general sales tax imposed by the previous government on raw materials consumed for medicine production in the country.
A PPMA statement quoted its spokesperson, Dr Kaiser Waheed, as saying that the decision of the previous government to impose 17 percent GST on raw materials required by the medicine producers had endangered the availability of the essential drugs in the country.
Dr Waheed said that the medicine producers in the country had been agitating on this single point for the past four months but the previous government didn’t show any flexibility and continued with this unjust decision.
He said the taxation had been hampering the best possible efforts of the PPMA’s members to keep producing essential medicines for the ailing citizens in the country.
He said the PPMA had always fully supported the government and its policies whenever the country was faced with any emergency so that there shouldn’t be any discontinuity in the production of quality medicines at the most affordable prices for the patients.
Dr Waheed said that the PPMA’s members kept on their production during the COVID-19 emergency when such services were essentially required to treat a large number of critically ill patients.
He said the medicine producers in the country expect the government to reciprocate in the same manner and withdraw any unjust tax on the production of drugs.
He said the pharmaceutical industry wanted that either this tax should be withdrawn or it should be refundable on a purchase basis.
He said that a delegation of PPMA wanted to meet the newly elected prime minister to brief him about the hardships being faced by the drug producers in the country.
