The All Pakistan Cotton Powerlooms Association (APCPA) has strongly demanded that export of cotton and yarn should be banned till overcoming the shortfall of cotton and severe price hike of yarn in the domestic markets of the country. The import duty on polyester yarn should be withdrawn to eliminate the monopoly of hoarders and speculators controlling the price hike.
Talking to newsmen, Abdul Haq, Chairman, Muhammad Akram Ghouri, Vice Chairman of APCPA said that Rs 4000 per bag of cotton yarn registered within a month, which is hampering the weaving textile sector including hosieries and other yarn consuming ancillary industries. They that more than 30,000 powerlooms have been closed down due to unbearable cost of doing business. If the present situation continued, labour-intensive powerlooms industry would be closed down and about one million workers across the country would become jobless.
The leaders of powerloom sector demanded of the government to immediately ban export of cotton and yarn "in the best interests of the country". Meanwhile, powerlooms owners and their labour staged protest outside their factories in Jhang, Faisalabad, Toba Tek Singh, Kamalia, Sidhar and other parts of Faisalabad Division against shortage of yarn, which is an essential raw material of the powerlooms industry. Protestors said that the unscheduled load shedding of electricity was adding fuel to the fire and unemployed workers were facing difficulties to meeting the domestic life as per routine.
Talking to newsmen, Salamat Ali, Chairman of Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturers & Exporters Association (PHMA) North Zone said that the increasing rate of cotton and yarn as well as its hoarding and speculation are badly affecting the labour-intensive and export-oriented value-added textile industry due to which the prices of polyester and cotton yarn are skyrocketing. He demanded of the government that export of cotton and yarn should be restricted till meeting the demands of the domestic sector and should eliminate the monopolists and capital mafia who are adding fuel to the fire by their speculative activities ignoring the national interests. Salamat said that the spot rate of cotton has reached all-time high level of Rs 8300 per maund in the country due to advance export dealing, while working paper of Federal Committee on Agriculture forecasting that the shortfall would jump to 2.5 million bales due the recent floods.
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