LAHORE: Aamir Fayyaz Tuesday was elected as central chairman of All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (Aptma) for 2016-17 and he will take charge of his office at the annual general meeting of the association on Sept 30, 2016.
Zahid Mazhar and Ali Pervez have been elected unopposed as senior vice-chairman and vice-chairman Aptma, respectively.
Former chairman Aptma Gohar Ejaz has congratulated newly-elected office-bearers and lauded the Businessmen Group for staging a clean sweep for the eighth consecutive year.
On this occasion, Aamir Fayyaz said textile industry had been facing a critical situation for the last three years due to fall in exports, taxation system and other inefficiencies. “Consequently, our exports have decreased and cheap imports made inroad in our domestic commerce,” he claimed.
He said the textile industry had envisaged massive growth in exports by 2018 with an annual addition of $2 billion after the award of GSP Plus status from European Union but this target could not be materialised due to cost of doing business.
Aamir Fayyaz appreciated the macro-economic stabilisation by present government and emphasized that export-led growth should now be the priority that required support for a level playing field viz-a-viz regional competitors, no front loading of raw materials for industry, monitoring of dumped/subsidized manufactured materials to safeguard domestic industry, regionally competitive energy supply and cost-equalization for exports by extending DLTL to all exporting sectors.
While appreciating concerns of the government towards the industry issues, he also urged the prime minister for holding a monthly meeting with the textile industry associations to review and monitor export movement until they pick up.
