ISLAMABAD: The federal government has unveiled a long awaited around Rs64.15 billion textile policy 2014-19.
Addressing a press conference, Federal Minister for Textile Industry Abbas Khan Afridi, along with Secretary and Director, Knawar Usman, announced the salient features of the new policy and briefed media about new schemes and incentives for the sector.
The minister said that Rs65 billion has been allocated for next five years as compared to last allocation of Rs1.88 billion, out of which only Rs28 billion was released during last five years. He said that the finance division will provide Rs40.6 billion, whereas the rest Rs23.5 billion will be financed through Planning Commission and Textile Development Fund.
Afridi announced some new schemes including drawback of local taxes and levies, reduction in markup rate from 9.4% to 7.5% under export refinance scheme, long term financing facility for technology up gradation at the rate of 9%, and duty free import of machinery and vocational training. He aimed not to be limited to Europe only but to focus Russian and Chinese markets also in next five years and announced to increase exports from $13 billion present to $26 billion.
Secretary textile industry Amir Marwat said that the textile policy 2014-2019 aims to double value addition from $ 1 billion per million bales to $2 billion per million bales in next five years, double the textile exports from $13 billion to $ 26 billion, facilitate investment of additional $5 billion in machinery and technology, improve fiber mix in favour of non-cotton i.e from 14% to 30%, improve product mix especially in garment sector from 28% to 45%, promote use of ICT , development and strengthening of clusters.
