After 'disassociating' itself from the Federal Textile Minister, the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (Aptma) is determined to stage a successful countrywide strike of 350 spinning mills with one million direct labour force on March 18. Chairman Aptma Punjab Zone, Gohar Ejaz, addressed a press conference on Saturday and said that the Ministry of Textile has failed to pursue its objectives, as it is not interested in utilising actual potential of the textile industry.
He said it is a dilemma that the government's intervention always lacks proper knowledge of the ground realities, which results in a great mess like the present one in the textile industry. According to him, the value-added industry was not in a position to consume whole production of spinning, as its actual consumption is not more than 120,000 tons monthly, leaving the spinning industry with a monthly surplus of 60,000 to 80,000 tons, which is exported.
Gohar said the Ministry has imposed the quota of 35,000 tons on exports of cotton yarn, leaving the market with a surplus of 25,000 tons due to a sheer negation of the free market mechanism. He said that the industry has exported some 27,000 tons till March 13 and remaining would be exhausted by March 17 and the spinning industry would have no option but to go on strike.
He criticised the Ministry of Textile for its failure to win a market access for the textile industry, instead it is entirely focusing on stifling the exports of certain segments of the textile industry. He said 70 per cent of the mills are left with shortage of stocks of cotton and they would have no working capital after April 1, resulting into heavy closures ahead.
Gohar said that the government should help the value-added sector directly in case of losses, and avoid a quota at the cost of the spinning industry. He called the Federal Textile Minister (FTM) as "Faisalabad Textile Minister" and added that he was not listening to the requests of the spinning industry. He said that he was holding press conference with a hope that some one from the federal government would definitely listen to him.
"We have lost confidence in the FTM. Nothing is offered to the spinning industry in the textile package because of the hostile attitude of the ministry." According to him, an unprecedented loadshedding has already brought the spinning industry to its toes and the ministry was imposing quotas, instead of introducing special incentives for the spinning industry.
He said the industry has also faced similar situation in gas supply during its load shedding but efficient management of the SNGPL officials avoided heavy losses. Further, he said the spinners were supposed to pay 14 percent mark-up against merely 6 percent by downstream industry.
The downstream industry is also offered R&D fund, which is good but anyfurther facility to this sector should not be extended at the cost of spinning industry, he added. "The Textile ministry should not be biased against a certain segment of the industry," he stressed. He said the Aptma would hold a general body meeting after 18th of March, when it would devise future strategy.
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