Books excluded from list of imported goods/ Publishers destocking of other foreign books including Cambridge

Karachi: Due to the ban on import of books along with other goods by the federal government and non-opening of LCs by private banks, there has been a worst shortage of imported books across the country including Karachi.

According to the details, these books include both textbooks and non-textbooks and it has happened for the first time in the available history that the readers of foreign writers in Pakistan are deprived of reading their books. Due to this, imported books will not be available in the upcoming session for thousands of students studying in hundreds of Cambridge schools and colleges.

On the other hand, on this complicated situation, Pakistan Publishers and Booksellers Association has started writing letters to the State Bank and Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar and has said that if this matter is not taken immediate notice, then Pakistani students and general readers will completely But foreign curricular and non-curricular literature is going to be deprived.

Aziz Khalid, chairman of Pakistan Publishers and Booksellers Association, confirmed the situation caused by the ban on imported books and said, “For the past several weeks, books have not been imported from any country in Pakistan. Publishers and booksellers have every The stock of various imported books has been exhausted.

After which the association has set up a committee of publishers who import books on this issue. This committee has written a letter to the State Bank about the issue and informed about the seriousness of the issue. Aziz Khalid said that engineering, medical, law and computer science books are imported at university level in textbooks, while there are thousands of editions of A and O level textbooks, which are now extinct.

It should be noted that due to non-opening of LC by private banks, there are reports of containers of books also standing at the port like other items, while foreign publishers, looking at this situation, now place new import orders only in the form of advance payments. This situation has given a serious blow to the domestic business class that imports books.
Nasir Hussain, director of Publisher Marketing Associate (PMA), a well-known publisher that imports foreign books, told “Express” that the study of education is not among the priorities of the government. has issued a list of essential and non-essential import items, books are not mentioned anywhere.

He said that banks have not been given any clear policy regarding imports, so banks are not ready to open LCs. No books have come to Pakistan since last December. Now February is ending, if the ban is still not lifted, there will be no books at A and O level level for the next session.

He said that we are also writing a letter to Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar to convey the seriousness of the matter.

It should be noted that due to the banning or controlling of imported books, academic and non-educational publications at the local level have also been affected and the local paper manufacturing industry has increased the price of paper while the pressure has slowed down the production of paper. And even the books prepared at the local level have not been published.

In this regard, Salim Hussain, the chairman of Liberty Book, says that the government has removed books from the list of non-essential items and controlled its import, while the import of books is only 0.26 percent of the total import of Palestine. Chairman Zainul Abedin said that currently the most widely read medical and A and O level books are missing while we are not able to give non-curriculum books to the libraries. Due to lack of clear policy, we have not been able to give books to libraries or schools.