Changes in tax system under contingency plan: minister visits Textile City site

Makhdoom Shahabuddin, federal minister for textile industry on Thursday said the federal government has made certain changes in the tax system under a contingency plan. Talking to newsmen during visit to the Textile City site, here, he said that these changes are not a new tax system as billions of rupees flood losses have created a financial crisis for the government, following which some bold steps had to be taken for the revival of economy.
He said that deadly floods across the country also forced the government to withdraw the zero-rated status of five leading sectors and slap flood surcharge. Talking about the Textile City, he said the government will support this mega national project, of which as per estimates the country's textile export will go up by $2 billion.
"Main purpose of my visit is to personally monitor the progress on the project and to help the management to quicken work on the project, " he added. He said the government is striving for a better working environment and to materialise this aim, gas load shedding has been reduced to two days.
The minister appreciated the performance of Zaheer A. Hussain, Chief Executive Officer of Textile City, saying that Zaheer and his team have done a great job for the progress of the country. "The development work on the project is satisfactory but could be improved with removal of hurdles. On behalf of the ministry of textiles, I assure the management that all the problems would be resolved soon with the help of other institutions," he said. On the occasion, Zaheer A Hussain said that development work on the project is going on speedily and it is likely to be launched for sale in the first half of 2011.
He said that so far Rs 159 million have been spent on water project, Rs 175 million on roads and Rs 500 million on land levelling. While, a loan of Rs 1.5 billion has been obtained from National Bank of Pakistan under the government of Pakistan guarantee. "Our vision is to develop and operate a world class industrial zone dedicated to the textile processing industry and project Pakistan as a textile hub," he added.
He said this project will not only boost export potential of value added textile products but also create employment opportunities for upto 80,000 people. This state of the art project has water capacity of 20 million gallons, 15 MGD combined effluent treatment plant, 150 mmcfd gas and 250MW power plant.
This will have complete chain of textile weaving, dyeing, towels, knitwear, bed linen and denim along with supported industries such as printing, thread, zips, buttons, engineering workshops and packaging. He said that soft launch of the project was made in 2007, while in 2009, Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani inaugurated the infrastructure development work and it is expected to be completed in 2013.