ISLAMABAD: Minister for Textile Industry Abbas Khan Afridi has stated that Textile Policy 2014-2019 has envisaged Pakistan as a leading value-added textile exporting country.
Chairing a consultative meeting with the textile stakeholders, the minister directed to forward the amended draft to planning commission and expressed his desire to see the policy in the next Economic Coordination Committee meeting.
Textile industry, he said was the most important manufacturing sector of Pakistan and has the longest production chain with inherent potential for value addition at all stages of processing.
He added that Textile sector provided employment to about 40 % of industrial labour force, consumes more than 40% banking credit and accounts for more than 8% of the GDP. The proposals from the planning commission were discussed and incorporated in the Textile Policy.
Abbas Khan Afridi further said that “Textile policy adopts a five pronged strategy to make the textile sector competitive and sustainable”.
“Budgetary support, drawback of local taxes and levies, easy finance, sales tax regime, duty free import of machinery, policy interventions, tariff rationalization, fiber diversification, product diversification, SME development, enactment of domestic labour laws, revival of sick units, marketing strategies, technology up gradation, establishment of world textile centre & model cotton trading houses, revitalization of projects like Pakistan Textile City, garment cities and capacity building of the ministry and related organizations are the salient features of the textile policy”, he remarked.
He said that the Textile Policy 2014-2019 aimed at 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 and facilitate investment of additional $5 billion in machinery and technology.
Representatives from PTEA, APTMA, PHMA, PRGMEA, towel manufacturers association, Pakistan Apparel forum and other textile organizations attended the meeting and accepted the policy draft.
