PTEA demands duty-free import of polyester fibre

Pakistan Textile Exporters Association (PTEA) has demanded duty free import of polyester fibre to cover the shortage of 20 percent of cotton crop washed away by floods and 30 percent demand supply gap of polyester fibre in the country.
This demand was raised by the Chairman PTEA, Wasim Latif and Vice Chairman Adil Manzoor Ellahi in a press statement here on Monday. They further said Pakistani businessmen had tried to cover the cotton crop shortage by importing five 0.5 million bales of cotton from India and the transaction with Indian exporters had been almost finished but Indians backed out of commitments and have unashamedly refused to ship the goods.
Pakistani buyers thus left in the lurch, they said. Resultantly Pakistani exporters have no option but to divert their production to alternate raw material of polyester fibre, they stated. They said that local polyester fibre manufacturing units even working at 100% full capacity were still short by 30% to fulfil the demand of exporters.
The raw material shortage was thus on two sides, on one hand 20% of cotton crop had been washed away in the recent floods and on the other hand demand of polyester fibre was in excess of total manufacturing capacity of the fibre mills, they said.
It was imperative that adequate supply of raw material for the textile exporters should be ensured to enable them to meet their export commitments, they said. This could be appropriately done by removing import restrictions and allowing duty free import of polyester fibre to give a breathing space to the crisis ridden textile sector, they concluded.
Wasim Latif said that textile crisis lingering over the last few months has assumed gigantic proportion in the country. Gas closure has added fuel to the fire and the industry is on the verge of collapsing, he added. Textile sector was generating 70 percent of foreign exchange few years back which has slumped to 55% now, he said Apprehending negative impact of downslide in industrial production, Latif said, textile sector in the country was already under severe strain due to three-day loasshedding of gas to industries.
Elaborating, he said that gas authorities have started to cut off gas supply to textile manufacturing units for three days per week due to major shortfall of gas. Under these circumstances textile exporters were constrained to stop manufacturing activities.
PTEA office-bearers said that fair distribution of shortage of gas is imperative and it would be acceptable to all the segments. They asked the government to remove the discrimination in the gas loadshedding. They demanded that duty free import of polyester fibre should be allowed till June 2011 to fulfil the requirements of local industry. They further demanded equal distribution of gas shortfall in the country.