Central Chairman APTMA Yasin Siddik has said that sustainability and growth of textile industry is being marred by energy supply constraints and liquidity crunch, limiting industrial potential to operate on full scale. He said unfortunately the textile industry export has witnessed dismal performance during the outgoing fiscal year, closing at 13.7 billion dollars against 13 billion dollars export during the corresponding period.
It reflects poor performance of the textile industry, as the actual export target for the outgoing fiscal year was 16 billion dollars. He asserted that a limited energy supply to the Punjab-based textile mills has proven a major hurdle in smooth operations and steady growth of textile industry.
Accordingly, he said, yarn and fabric export has registered 26 percent and 35 percent decline in quantity terms respectively during the last three months. It has further triggered serious supply chain issues for value added sector right from knitting to woven to the bed-linen, which have consequently failed to avail the GSP Plus facility from the EU.
Serious energy supply constraints have also led to forced closures of production capacities to the extent of 40 to 50 percent, he added. Furthermore, he said, the industry will also be unable to procure cotton crop already started arriving in the market. He urged the government to ensure uninterrupted electricity supply to industry and 250mmcfd gas supply to Punjab-based mills for in-house generation and consumption of 1000MW electricity besides an expeditious processing and liquidation of Sales Tax Refunds as per commitment of the federal Finance Minister in the budget speech. He further urged the government to make announcement of Textile Policy 2014-19 to enable the industry to overcome structural imbalances. Also, he said the US government should be pursued for market access facility in line with the EU GSP Plus facility.
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