LAHORE: The end of Abbas Afridi’s tenure as textile minister is creating problems for the industry as the industrialists have urged the government to appoint textile minister without any delay and rejected the government decision of merging Textile Division into the Commerce Division.
Pakistan Readymade Garments Manufacturers & Exporters Association (PRGMEA) Chairman Ijaz Khokhar said that in absence of the ministry, major decisions regarding textile policy implementation, Export Development Fund and budget preparation exercise for 2015-16 are being delayed. He said that uncertainty is negatively affecting the whole textile sector which contributes more than 54% share in total exports of the country.
Ijaz Khokhar said that textile has become the most important sector especially after grant of the GSP Plus status by the EU countries, as 80% items, having free market access, relate to this sector and it needs an extraordinary focus. He urged the government to appoint Haji Akram Ansari, the sitting MNA of the PML-N from Faisalabad, as the federal textile minister, as he has a vast experience of textile industry.
“Akram Ansari, the former chairman of Standing Committee on Textile, during the previous government tenure, proved himself as a dedicated and honest personality. The former textile body chairman is the most suitable person to head this important ministry, because he is among the few who have no allegations of any kind of financial scam and the whole textile sector poses full confidence on his leadership.”
All the regional competitors including India, China and Bangladesh have separate ministries of textile and Pakistan must follow the suit. They said that the experiment of textile and commerce ministry merger failed twice in the past.
PRGMEA Vice Chairman Malik Naseer said, “Our competitor Bangladesh is enjoying duty-free import of every raw material. As a result, Bangladesh value-added textile exports have surged to $26 billion without producing a single bale of cotton while Pakistan has never crossed the garment export figure of $4.5 billion.” He said that if the country starts converting 50% of its total cotton of around 14 million bales into value-added products, it can fetch $42 billion in exports. In case of 100% consumption of raw material, the country can earn $84 billion, he added.
