A big plunge in textile exports drew a strong criticism against the PML-N government, as the industrialists on Monday called it an 'indifferent' rule to the national economy. Pakistan suffered a 16.90 percent fall in the overall exports and 12 percent in textiles alone, Chairman, Pakistan Apparel Forum, Javed Bilwani said, citing the official statistics and terming the country's economic situation 'alarming'.
He said the country's textiles failed to show a growth with all its categories had gone down on the world trade index. Bed-wear export declined by 21 percent, towel by 9.01 percent, knitwear by 8.20 percent and readymade by 6.14 percent during July 2015 comparing with exports in June 2015.
The bleak exports figures clearly indicate that the country's value-added textiles are falling to an alarming level, he said and slammed the unilateral rule of PML-N in the center for showing 'no signs' to address the serious exports matter and unfold its preparation to salvage the national economy. Surprisingly, he said, exports of raw cotton shot up by 68 percent and cotton combed or carded by 100 percent. "It is a fact that globally exports of raw materials are discouraged and value addition is given all facilities and incentives."
Bilwani who is also Chief Co-ordinator, Value Added Textile Forum again criticised the government for preferring exports of raw textile materials over apparels, saying that "Our government prefers and has chosen to export the country's precious and most essential raw material - raw cotton and also combed and carded cotton abroad when these raw materials are sorely needed by the vital value added textile sector," he said.
He feared that exports figures would worsen in coming months as the sales tax rate had been increased by 50 percent in the budget 2015-16, which blocked exporters' huge amount of liquidity.
"A large number of countries have devalued their currencies against the dollar and globally the race of devaluation has started. India devalued by 7.06 percent, China by 5.61 percent, Vietnam by 6.44 percent, Sri Lanka by 2.62 percent, Turkey by 36 percent and Bangladesh by 0.15 percent while Pakistan appreciated by 3.18 percent," he said.
He said that the industry had continued to warn the government about the situation and urged the most pragmatic and constructive policies to scale up to double the country's exports of value added textile sector. The government burdened and endangered the apparel sector through its inconvenient policies, he added.
"This is because of the fact that the value added textile sector is burdened with multiple taxes with high cost of inputs - tariffs of gas, electricity, water, raw material, etc, and is further harassed due to short supply of all these most essential utilities," he added.
Bilwani appealed to the government to make a policy for reduction in all input costs as otherwise the export-oriented industries would not only close down their operations but millions of workers rendered jobless. "The government should grant a separate status, special tariff and top priority to the textile export oriented industries in the supply of gas and power also because they are the largest earners of foreign exchange and generate the largest employment," he maintained.
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