New textile package on cards as government aims to boost exports

Ministry of Commerce and Textile, Federal Minister Pervaiz Malik on the occasion of inaugurating the office of All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) in federal capital, announced that an incentive package would soon be announced for the textile sector with the aim to give a much needed impetus to boost exports.

In today’s highly competitive global environment, textile sector needs to upgrade its supply chain, improve productivity and maximise value addition to survive. This is only possible if the sector is provided with congenial environment and full support to meet these challenges and attain global competitiveness.

Given the importance of textile sector which has an overwhelming impact on the economy and contributes almost sixty percent to the exports, textile industry indeed deserves more incentives than any other sector and they expect that the package will be formulated after consultations with relevant stakeholders while keeping in mind their genuine demands such as provision of subsidised power.

Regional competitors such as Bangladesh, India, and China fully back the industry with a whole lot of incentives, which has given them the edge to multiply their exports. While in case of Pakistan, several factors are impeding the growth of their industry and thereby it is losing its share in the world trade.

The situation would have been different if right kind of interventions were made at the very beginning. The government is urged to fulfil its commitments made with the exporters and work out the textile package while keeping an eye on long-term development of the industry.

Present government had set the target of $35 billion in exports but today these have gone down to $19 billion.