The All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (Aptma) has said that Pakistan''s textile exports have gone down by 40 percent since 2006 on account of multifarious bottlenecks, including market access vis-à-vis main trading partners.
In a letter to Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who was in Tokyo (Japan) to attend the Friends of Pakistan (FoP) forum, the association''s Chairman, Tariq Mehmood, said that the textiles sector woes should also be discussed with the leadership of other countries. "We are representing the issue of market access in view of its importance for Pakistan''s economic and financial wellbeing," Tariq said in the letter.
The letter further said that Pakistan''s textile industry is passing through a period of unprecedented crisis. It has become a collateral victim of the global economic meltdown and has suffered much on account of being a frontline participant in the war on terror. Due to the prevailing domestic backlash, the country''s perception has been impaired. Being an export-oriented industry, it is difficult for the textile sector to sustain continued pressure scenario, he added.
He said that Pakistan''s textile exports all along the value chain have gone down by 30 percent to 40 percent in quantity terms in three years and exporters cannot effectively market their produce, as on the one hand buyers are not visiting Pakistan due to adverse travel advisory and, on the other, importing countries are not facilitating visas to exporters. According to governmental estimates, the loss has been estimated to the tune of $35 billion due to war on terror calculated by the Finance Ministry''s officials.
"Our industry was growing at 10 percent and textile exports at more than 15 percent up to July 2006, which is now showing declining trend," he said. The Aptma chief said that textile industry is still hopeful and sees light at the end of the tunnel.
It has resilience to bounce back and is prepared to make further investments to achieve $24 billion target by 2014.These targets are manageable if facilitated by the provision of special market access by developed countries including Japan," he added. "We are bringing this matter to your notice for favour of being taken up at the diplomatic and political level so that Pakistan may get special market access," he said in the letter.
In another letter to Commerce Minister, the association said that Pakistan has been a leading exporter of cotton yarn to Japan. Over the years Pakistan''s cotton yarn exports to Japan have diminished very significantly as a result of highly preferential access given by Japan to Pakistan''s competitor countries i.e. Indonesia, Vietnam, and Korea etc pursuant to different Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) entered into by Japan with them.
The association has urged the Commerce Ministry to take market access initiatives including entry into FTA with Japan and expansion of GSP-related concessions.