Textile exports from Faisalabad region are dwindling by Rs 850 million per day as the textile crisis is worsening and thousands of workers are protesting against job loss in front of mills in the industrial belt here.
Commenting on the grave situation, Chairman Pakistan of Textile Exporters Association (PTEA) Mian Tahir Ishaque Bharara has said that the country is falling behind the export target and export markets are being lost. He said that unwise government policies had compounded the crisis with the shortage of gas, resulting in huge investment losses.
He said the investors were already shying away from the country and no one was prepared to do business in Pakistan in view of the worst law and order situation in the country. He rebutted the assertion by some circles that non-relevant sectors were raising hue and cry about gas shortage, and added that thousands of power looms were dependent and inter-connected with sizing. Weaving sector was connected with sizing sector he added.
Meanwhile, addressing a joint press conference, Chaudhry Muhammad Saleem Akhtar, President; Muzammil Sultan, Vice President; Aftab Ahmad, former President, Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry; Nazim Shahzad, Regional Chairman; Mian Ajmal Farooq, Vice Chairman, All Pakistan Textile Processing Mills Association; Muhammad Aslam Javed, Chairman; Muhammad Amjad Khwaja, former Chairman, Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturers Association (North Zone); Khurram Iftikhar, Azhar Majeed Shiekh, Sheikh Mukhtar Ahmad, former Chairmen of Pakistan Textile Exporters Association; Saeed Ahmad Sheikh, Chairman, Khurrianwala Industrial Estate, Faisalabad; Rana Talib Hussain, acting Chairman, Pakistan Sizing Industries Association; Sheikh Muhammad Saleem Sana, Chairman Small Traders Association, and other officer-bearers of textile associations announced that the Faisalabad industrial and business were thinking of organising peaceful rallies and protest campaign to register their anger over the failure of the gas supply company in the industrial city. They said that the business and industrialists were of the view that discrimination was being adopted against Faisalabad industry, as there was no gas shedding in Karachi industries.
Most of the speakers apprehended that their buyers would divert their export orders to India, Bangladesh and China and once foreign buyers were lost, and they would not revert to Pakistan easily.