Secretary Commerce Zafar Mahmood said on Friday that imposition of quota on yarn export was a temporary measure to ensure availability of cotton yarn for local value-added textile industry.
He was responding to media question at the third international conference on "Technical Textile", jointly organised by Pegasus Consultancy and Textile Institute of Pakistan (TIP) along with 8th MEGATECH Pakistan 2010 at Karachi Expo Centre.
He said quota was imposed by a federal committee consisting of representatives of Ministry of Finance, Commerce, Economic Affairs, Agriculture. "This committee is regularly reviewing the situation of cotton yarn in the country and taking decision on the basis of demand and supply position", he noted.
Mahmood said that Bangladesh had recently imposed ban on the export of jute to make sure that local value-added sector should get the raw material. He pointed out that the international prices of cotton and cotton yarn have increased due to rising demand from China.
"Cotton prices have also recorded a historic rise in Pakistan too and therefore price of cotton yarn have also increased here, he added.Secretary Commerce said that yarn exporters had violated the quota restriction and exported 70,000 tons of yarn when the limit was 50,000 tons per month.
However, the government is also listening to the point of view of all the stakeholders, including Aptma and taking them on board on this issue. Mahmood maintained that this cannot be a permanent restriction as it will lead to creating a distortion in the industry. He said that a review meeting of the committee would be held soon to take a decision in this regard.
Earlier, speaking at the conference, he said that the country would need to graduate from cotton economy to value-added economy. He appreciated the organisers for holding a technical conference to create awareness about the new technologies and trends in textile industry.
Speakers at the conference suggested value-added sector to go for technical textile, which is rising very fast in the world compared to conventional textiles. They included senior fellow from the largest British textile technology institute, University of Bolton, UK, Dr Tahir Shah, Muhammad Kamran Iqbal, Dr Zubair Bandukda and Rector TIP Dr Niaz Ahmed Akhtar and member board TIP Abdul Majeed. Managing Director Pegasus Consultancy Aasim Siddiqui also spoke on the occasion.