LAHORE: All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (Aptma) Chairman S M Tanveer has demanded the government to provide electricity to textile industry at 8 cents per unit to achieve the goals set in Textile Policy 2014-19.
He said this while addressing a press conference at the APTMA Punjab office. He said that the textile industry in Punjab, which is 70 per cent of the total in country, is operating at a cost differential of $1 billion compared with other provinces.
Tanveer said that according the textile policy, the industry will get uninterrupted energy supply but the fact is that the SNGPL has suspended gas supply on the same day. He said that in this situation taking the textile exports to $26 billion in next five years would remain a dream. It would be a miracle to sustain the present level of $13 billion under the prevalent energy supply situation, he added.
He wondered how the SNGPL ensured gas supply to the Punjab-based textile industry during peak winter, as it has withdrawn gas supply when demand for space heating has come to an end. Already, he said, the SNGPL restricted gas supply to four and half hours a day against the PM directive of eight hours a day gas supply during last sixty days.
He said India was extending rebates and other facilities to its industry for mitigating the impact of GSP plus to Pakistan. He said he was unable to understand why the government was not serious in sustainable growth of textile industry, particularly in Punjab.
The Aptma chairman said the value added industry has secured substantial export orders from the Heimtextile exhibition but they have no idea whether to meet the deadlines under given circumstances. On the other hand, he said, India has started dumping fine count yarn to Pakistani market, threatening the viability of some 30 mills producing fine count cotton yarn.
