The current textile policy of the government is not understandable, because instead of giving any relief to the affected textile sector, it has further aggravated the gas and electricity crisis, and if immediate remedial measure are not adopted forthwith, it will cast devastating repercussions on the afflicted textile sector, very much to the detriment of the national economy.
These grave apprehensions were envisaged by M. Nisar Shekhani, Chairman All Pakistan Textile Processing Mills Association (Aptpma), on his return to Karachi after attending a high level meeting of the Standing Committee of National Assembly on Textile Industry.
Elaborating his contention at length, the Aptpma chief contended that the dual crisis has placed us virtually on the horns of a dilemma. Whereas the international prices of crude oil have, during the preceding few months, dropped down from 147 to below 40 dollars per barrel, the overall gas prices for the industrial sector have been enhanced by three percent.
This erroneous policy is beyond the threshold of our comprehension as it has rendered the cost of doing business in Pakistan unviable as compared with our neighbouring countries, eg, India, China and Bangladesh, and is likely to oust us from the international export arena.
The worst affected areas are the Northern Areas, especially Faisalabad, Lahore and Gujranwala while the hardest hit sector is that of textile processing. There is no gainsaying the fact that textile processing sector is, by far, the most value-added, export-oriented, revenue-generating and labour-intensive sector of textile industry in Pakistan.
Forced closure of hundreds of export-oriented textile processing units of Pakistan would, God forbid oust us from the international export arena, very much to the detriment of our national economy. Elaborating further, Nisar Shekhani dwelt at some length over the electricity crisis.
Shekhani argued that whereas the capacity to generate electricity is there, the electricity generating companies are allegedly, unable to buy the oil due to "liquidity crunch". Concluding, he complained of the prevalent "scheduled and unscheduled load-shedding" of electricity and gas.