'Textile package to tackle problems of industry'

Textile Ministry has played a major role in formulating Rs 25 billion textile package to tackle the problems of this industry within a record period of only three months.
This was stated by Federal Minister for Textile Industry, Chaudhry Mushtaq Ali Cheema while addressing a function to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Pakistan Textile Testing Foundation (PTTF) and SGS Pakistan Limited at the office of Pakistan Textile Exporters Association (PTEA) here late on Saturday night.
He said that under the MoU, the SGS would provide management services to PTTF while SGS will issue certificates of tests carried out at this state-of-the-art laboratory, which would be accepted globally.
Cheema said that in ninety's, government had to spend more than 10 years to understand the problems confronted by the textile industry. Thanks to the ministry of textile industry that present government took only three months to understand and carve out a workable package to resolve the issue.
He said that export refinance had been trimmed 1.5 percent while procedure to sanction loan under LMM scheme had also been simplified. "Earlier, more than 40 percent limit remained unutilised due to the complicated procedure", he said and added that the amount under this scheme had also been increased.
He said that the textile exporters could also swap their costly loans with these cheaper loans. However, the amount for this scheme would be announced on the basis of the detailed data.
Similarly, 3 slabs had been fixed for the Research and Development Fund (R&D). It would help the exporters to improve the quality of their products and face the emerging challenges of WTO.
He clarified that R&D would not be allowed to the commercial exporters. Similarly, it would not be allowed to the textile exports made to the least developing countries while this incentive would be processed through the concerned association, he added.
He welcomed the MOU between PTTF and SGS and said that it would provide internationally accepted certificate of the exportable textile products at their doorstep.
PTTF Chairman, Rana Arif Tauseef said that it had established a state-of-art textile-testing laboratory from EDF, but its certificates were not accepted internationally. Hence, MoU had been signed with SGS, he said and added that it was an international quality certification company and its certificates were accepted globally.
He said that PTTF had also started classes to train manpower for the laboratories of the various textile units. Managing Director SGS, Syed Farrukh Mazhar said that his company was internationally known Certification Company with 2 laboratories at Lahore and Karachi and 300 laboratories in other countries.
Later, chairman PTTF and Managing Director exchanged the signed documents in the presence of Federal Minister.