Textile industry in Punjab quivers due to load shedding

Punjab-based textile industry unable to operate to the fullest capacity, due to the prevailing energy crisis, despite holding the GSP plus status from the EU since January 2014. This province is a major contributor to cotton production, which the textile industry consumes by and large and strengthens the rural economy.

Both electricity and gas is being denied repeatedly to the textile units in Punjab. The situation becomes gruesome during winter in terms of gas supply and during summer in terms of electricity supply. The situation reaches to the highest point of misery when continuous load shedding occurs in textile industries without any exclusion. Since 2007, this problem aggravated leading to closure of many factory gates on the faces of textile workers throughout Punjab. However, during most of the months, full supply was provided to the textile units being fed through independent feeders.

The textile industry was denied gas supply for 77 days in 2008-09, 95 days in 2009-10, 136 days in 2010-11, 185 days in 2011-12 and 62 days in 2012-13 up to the month December. All this adds to the loss, this sector has to face.
According to a study of Academy of Contemporary Research Journal 2012, if there is no independent variable including the electricity crisis and interest rate, effect on the production of textile than the value of production of textile sector is 612.953 million square meters.

At present, the situation is not as grim due to efforts of Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif. It was during the last five years when the textile sector was crippled to compromise with its potential to grow as around 50 percent of the industrial units were either shut down or had suspended operations.

Also, the Pakistan textile industry contributes more than 60 percent of total export and largest manufacturing sector of Pakistan’s industry. The European Union (EU) has granted the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) Plus status to Pakistan with an impressive count of 406 votes, allowing Pakistani products a duty free access to the European market.

The textile market getting highly competitive mainly due to multinationals it is imperative to think to merge with the textile enterprises of Italy, China for the production of complete spinning units and with Italy, Korea and Taiwan for production of shuttle less looms. And with the support of the government, the textile companies in Punjab can find new markets and financial aid for replacement of machines which asserts the quality production of products.