Pakistan Floats Tender for Tile Traceability – Only to Cancel it a Few Weeks Later

Following the implementation of tax stamps and production monitoring on tobacco products, sugar, fertiliser and cement, Pakistan’s Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has now turned its attention to another large-scale manufacturing sector: tiles.

In October, the FBR issued an invitation to bid ¹ for an end-to-end tile production monitoring, traceability, and authentication system. However, this tender has now been cancelled. While sources tell us it might be reissued soon, probably with different terms and conditions, this is not official.

This new cancellation seems to be following a pattern with regard to FBR tenders for production monitoring systems, which, over the years, have been consistently issued, cancelled, and then reissued. Even the tender that did go through without cancellation (the one currently focused on cigarettes and cement) ran into many challenges along the way, as regularly covered by Tax Stamp & Traceability News™.

However, cancellation aside, let’s look at the current tender specifications for tile monitoring, authentication and traceability.