LAHORE: The National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Commerce deferred on Thursday a meeting, earlier scheduled to be held tomorrow (Friday) in Islamabad to discuss power tariff hike for the export sectors, till February 20 on account of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s address to the joint session of the parliament, sources revealed on Thursday.
As per a February 4 notification, the meeting was to be convened on Feb 14 to discuss the issue of concessions given to the textile sector and their (concessions) sudden withdrawal by the various government departments.
Sources said a notification for Feb 20 meeting would be issued soon.
PTI MNA Muhammad Yaqoob Sheikh will convene the meeting while PML-N MNA’s Shaista Pervaiz Malik and Shaza Fatima Khawaja would be among the committee members.
The administrative secretaries of the ministries of commerce, finance, energy, petroleum; the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) chairman, the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) chairman and the Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturers and Exporters Association (PHMA) chairman were asked to appear before the committee in person.
Sources said that textile sector would take up the issue of power tariff surcharges over and above the concessionary rate of 7.5cents/kWh with retrospective effect that the distribution companies (DISCOs) are charging to the export sectors following the Power Division’s notification of January 13.
