Pakistan is expected to remove customs duties on an additional 152 tariff lines in order to support the country's manufacturing sector.

Commerce and investment advisor to the prime minister Razak Dawood asked the nation's Tariff Policy Board (TPB) to develop proposals for the removal of duties on items that are not manufactured in the country, the Dawn newspaper reports.

An official announcement from the TPB agreed there is an urgent need to address anomalies in the current tariff structure in order to ensure Pakistan's manufacturing sector can gain cheap access to vital raw materials, thereby reducing the overall cost of doing business.

This is essential to the government's 'Made in Pakistan' initiative, which is focusing on the promotion of indigenous products to boost economic prosperity in the Asian nation.

To meet these goals, import duties on 1,623 tariff lines relating to basic raw materials and intermediate goods have already been reduced to zero through the Finance Act 2020.

Meanwhile, a further 164 items related to the textile sector not manufactured in the country have had additional customs and regulatory duties removed recently by the federal cabinet.