The All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (Aptma) on Tuesday claimed that while cotton yarn crisis is looming on international front, Pakistan's commodity is still the cheapest in the world. Addressing a press conference here on Monday, Anwar Ahmed Tata, Chairman of Aptma said that production of cotton yarn in the country was gradually increasing to meet the local demand and, during the November, production of cotton yarn had reached 241.5 million kilogram, with an increase of 8 percent.
Out of total production, 59.05 million kg cotton yarn had been exported, while remaining quantity--182.45 million kg--was available for local market, he said. He claimed that Pakistan's cotton yarn is still cheapest in the world market and local textile exporters are getting yarn at lower prices as compared to other competitor countries.
"The price of 20-single count cotton yarn is Rs 120 per pound in India, whereas the same quality yarn is available in Pakistan at Rs 95 per pound", he said. He said that the government had also withdrawn 5 percent import duty on yarn, and some of Aptma members were importing yarn from India. "We are also against any restriction on yarn export, as it would directly hurt the free trade economy, resulting in millions of rupees losses to the spinning sector, which has recently overcome a two-year crisis", Tata said.
He said that spinning mills are importing some 2.5-3 million cotton bales every year to meet their demand and if the government tried to impose a ceiling on cotton yarn export then millers would be compelled to stop import of raw cotton.
Shahzad Ahmed vice chairman, said that actually there is no shortage of cotton yarn in the domestic market and the commodity is available in huge quantity for the local textile industry.
"The basic problem is price of cotton yarn, which is on rise due to the increasing prices of raw cotton", he said, and added that cotton price has surged by Rs 1200-1300 per maund in the domestic market and now has reached peak level of Rs 4,800 per maund, compelling the spinners to increase the price of cotton yarn.
Yasin Siddik, chairman of Aptma Sindh-Balochistan, said that Aptma has set up a 'Facilitation Desk' at Aptma head office for easy and uninterrupted supply of cotton yarn to the value-added textile sector. However, so far only three queries had been received from traders, and not a single consumer of value-added textile sector has approached Aptma for cotton yarn, he added.
"We are expecting some 12.5 million bales cotton production this year, against the consumption of 15.5 million bales, for the domestic market and a gap of 3 million bales would be fulfilled through import of raw cotton from other countries," he said. However, Yasin said, if the government imposed any restrictions on export of cotton yarn, spinners would not import raw cotton for local market. He said that cotton growers would also face difficulty to get fair and better price of their product in case of restriction on yarn export.
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