August 07, 2014 (Pakistan)

The growth of the Pakistani textile industry is being marred due to a liquidity crunch and shortfall in electricity as well as gas supplied to the industry, a top official of a textile trade body – All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) said.

According to the Daily Times, APTMA Central Chairman – Yasin Siddik was quoted as saying that textile exports have recorded a dismal performance in the just completed fiscal year.

He said that the industry could achieve exports of US $13.7 billion in the just completed fiscal year against US $13 billion in its previous fiscal year and the $13.7 billion has come in the background of the target of $16 billion set at the beginning of the last fiscal year.

The biggest hurdle in exports and smooth operations is the shortage of both gas and electricity to textile mills in Punjab state, which constitutes 70% capacity of the entire Pakistan textile sector, he said.

He added that exports of yarn in quantity terms registered a 26 percent dip, while that of fabrics declined 35 percent in the last quarter of the just completed fiscal year.

Yasin Siddik continued, “This has further triggered serious supply chain issues for the value-added sector beginning from knitting, woven to apparels and bed linen, which have consequently failed to avail GSP plus facility from the European Union.”

He warned of large scale bankruptcies in the textile sector if these issues were not addressed at the earliest as the shortages had already led to closures of 40-50 percent of capacities”, he added.

He was also apprehensive of the fact that under the present conditions, it will be difficult for the industry to buy the new cotton crop, which has already started arriving in the market.

He requested the government to provide uninterrupted electricity supply to industry and 250 million cubic feet per day gas supply to Punjab-based mills for in-house generation.

Besides this, he urged for an expedient processing of sales tax refunds as per commitment of the Finance Minister in the budget speech.

He also urged the government to announce a new Textile Policy 2014-19, which will help the sector to overcome structural imbalances. He also requested the Pak government to pursue the US and urge it to offer free market access facility as the one extended by the EU.

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