Nguyet Hang
The Vietnam Plastic Association (VPA) said it had petitioned the ministry to reconsider a plan to increase import tax for polypropylene (PP) material to 3% from the current 0%.
Local companies only turn out a combined 150,000 tons of this material annually while the domestic demand is 750,000 tons a year, forcing the industry to import 600,000 tons of PP to make up for the shortfall, VPA said.
With the import price of some US$1,500 a ton, plastic enterprises will have to pay an extra VND500 billion to import the same material volume when the tax rate is raised to 3%.
The ministry publicized the tax rate increase plan on May 10 this year. According to the ministry, the tax adjustment imposed on PP, benzene and paraxylene is to protect and encourage the domestic production of these products. With the tax revision, the Government does not have to offset prices for Binh Son and Nghi Son companies from 2013 when their plants were commissioned.
The plastic industry has also been hit by the amended and supplemented Law on Tax Management coming into force on July 1. The new law changes tax payment and tax grace duration for importation of commodities, thus discouraging producers in the sector.
Under the revised regulations, goods that are imported as feedstock for export processing are subject to a tax payment within a maximum of 275 days. Therefore, for material import shipments out of this category, companies must pay tax before having the shipments cleared or having the goods released, instead of being allowed to do clearance procedures prior to tax payment as before.
An importer complained that it had to pay VND100 million in tax for a shipment worth VND1 billion so that it could have it cleared by the customs.
The plastic industry posted total export value of some US$1 billion in the first six months of the year, up 9.3% year-on-year, VPA reports.
Plastic products contributed a combined US$851 million, growing 11.5% year-on-year. The low export growth is ascribed to the slackened demand of the nation’s major importers like Japan, the U.S. and Germany.
Đăng ký: VietNam News
