Taxes should be reduced on Tea

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KARACHI: Chairman of National Business Group Pakistan, President Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum, and All Karachi Industrial Alliance, and former provincial minister Mian Zahid Hussain on Wednesday said Tea has become a necessity therefore taxes on this item should be reduced in the upcoming budget.

Tea is also used by the poor with roti as meals, as increasing inflation has eroded their buying power, he said.

Mian Zahid Hussain said that tea should be declared a food item to provide relief to the masses facing high food prices.

Talking to the business community, the veteran business leader said that local production should be increased to save foreign exchange and bring the prices down.

He said that tea consumption and its import is increasing while smuggling continues despite a reduction in it.

Pakistan consumes almost two hundred thousand tonnes of tea annually but it is attracting 53 percent direct and indirect taxes which is not justified.