Pakistan confiscates illegal HCFCs

The Pakistan government ordered the confiscation of illegally imported HCFCs and denied import quotas to seven companies this year.

Pakistan newspaper Dawn reported that a senior official of the Climate Change Division had confirmed that “seven authorised importers were placed under a moratorium and not given any quota for 2014” due to their inability to provide documentary proof of their 2013 imports.

Under the Montreal Protocol Pakistan must phase out production and consumption of HCFCs by 2040, with stepped reductions starting in 2015.

The government’s Climate Change Division gave import quotas to 23 parties for import of HCFCs in 2013 later discovering that 10 unauthorised companies had imported a total of 8.29 ODP tonnes of HCFC illegally. It was also found that some authorised importers had exceeded quota limits. As a result, the government recalculated the quota for the year 2014 with only 15 companies whose names were cleared now being issued a quota for 2014.