Govt proposes mega incentives for agriculture development

ISLAMABAD, Apr 27 (APP):The government Friday proposed several relief measures for developing agriculture sector in the country and announced uniform general sales tax on all fertilizers.
It has announced uniform General Sales Tax (GST) at the rate of 3 percent on all fertilizers, which would eliminate distortion in tax regime, further reduce fertilizer prices and promote use of balanced nutrient.
The government also proposed to reduce GST on agriculture machinery from current 7 percent to 5 percent, where as concessions in taxes and duties were being proposed for dairy livestock sectors.
In Budget 2018-19, the government has also proposed for setting up an agriculture research support fund with an initial allocation of Rs 5 billion, which would provide financial grants for research and development of modern plant and seed verities for achieving higher crop yield.
Besides, the government has also proposed establishing the agriculture technology fund fir indigenization of agriculture technology with an initial allocation of Rs 5 billion.
The government has also decided to revamp all the research organizations and was working on plane to restructuring and revamping of research organization and institutions to make them world class state of the art platform for research and development.