In the budget announced for financial year 2017-18 by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Friday, the government has decided to jack up regulatory duty on imports of essential eatables by up to 25pc.
According to information available from the Federal Board of Revenue, regulatory duty on the import of corn flakes, crisp bread, macaroni, vermicelli, ginger bread etc has been increased from 15pc to 25pc for the FY 2017-18. An import duty of 25pc has been slapped to curb the import of fish and 5pc duty has been enforced on import of egg yolks.
For fresh fruits like avocados, oranges, apricots, peaches, lemons, fresh grapes, kiwifruit, pomegranates, dry fruits, water melons and etc has been increased from 15pc previously to 20 pc in the upcoming FY 2017-18. Items like cheese, natural honey, yogurt and many dairy products have been slapped with a regulatory duty of 20pc which was 15pc previously.
Regulatory duty for vegetables like peas, beans, mushrooms and potatoes is being raised to 20pc from 15pc a year ago. Also, the duty on fresh juices has also been increased to 20pc and for instant coffee in retail packs and instant coffee in bulk has been raised to 15pc from 10pc a year ago. For items like ice-cream, tomato ketchup, mustard flour, syrups & squashes, mineral water etc the regulatory duty has risen to 20pc from 15pc a year before.
