Pakistan's apparel sector is being hit hard by negative advisories from across the western world for travel to Pakistan. "The travelling cost of the sector for marketing purposes has shot up to 300 percent, as no buyer is ready to visit Pakistan right now," said one leading exporter.
According to him, the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are real sufferer of the situation, as they are not financially capable enough to bear the rising cost of marketing. It may be noted that a political and economic crisis has brought a negative impact on the apparel sector. All leading destinations across the globe, particularly those in western world, have issued negative travel advisories resulting in discouragement of buyers from travelling to Pakistan.
A leading exporter from Faisalabad, having presence of his brand in different parts of the world, said that he paid Rs 300 million extra, as air freight, when roads were blocked by the public. According to him, the marketing cost can be lessened with the extension of R&D fund for 2008-09, especially in the face of dull buying activity across Europe and the USA with strong fears of recession there.
Out of all textile sectors, apparel is the only sector showing consistent growth from about $2.2 billion in 2003 to about $3.3 billion in 2007, but still Pakistan's market share in global apparel market is least among its competitive countries.
Pakistan has only 1.3 percent in global apparel market, compared to Bangladesh which has 2.8 percent market share, India 3.3 percent and China 31 percent. Apparel industry currently provides direct employment to over a million people and about the same number of people are employed indirectly through vendor industries.