Governor Punjab Salmaan Taseer is holding a meeting with apparel sector representatives in connection with quota restrictions on export of cotton yarn here on Monday (today). Federal Minister for Textile Rana Farook Saeed will also be present during the meeting.
The Governor has already held meetings with representatives from spinning industry, followed by another meeting with the Federal Minister for Textile Rana Farook Saeed and Federal Textile Secretary on the directives of President Asif Ali Zardari, who had intervened after a daylong strike of 350 spinning mills on March 18.
It may be noted that the Ministry of Textile (MinTex) had imposed quota on exports of cotton yarn to 50,000 tones a month, followed by further reduction to 35,000 tones per month inviting strong reaction from All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA). Governor Punjab is supposed to submit his recommendations to the President for future line of action on the controversy.
Meanwhile, the spinners have started smelling rat after knowing that the Federal Textile Minister (commonly known Faisalabad Textile Minister among spinners) would be present in Monday's meeting of Governor Punjab with apparel sector's representatives. They said why the Federal Minister should be part of this meeting when he has not been present in spinners' meeting with the Governor.
According to the spinning industry circles, the Federal Textile Minister was showing biased and one-sided attitude, as his presence in Monday meeting gives an impression that he was supportive to the downstream industry.
They further feared that the sole agenda of the Federal Minister was to distort the free market mechanism by influencing the yarn prices for the benefit of apparel sector. They said the MinTex has negated the 16 years old free market policy of the government simply to benefit the apparel sector and the APTMA was pushed to the wall.
The spinners further alleged that Federal Textile Minister had failed to balance out the situation, leading to a crisis like situation in the industry. According to these circles, major exporters like Nishat, Gul Ahmed, Saphire, Al-Karamn and Younas were exporting more than 50 percent of the value-added garments and all of them were members of APTMA. But the Minister was toeing the line of Pakistan Readymade Garments & Manufacturers Association (PRGMEA) and Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturers Association (PHMA) blindly.
These circles said the Ministry revised the quota downward despite a clear-cut instruction from the President for no further reduction in quota limit.
It may be noted that the Federal Textile Minister had told Business Recorder a day earlier that he was minister of the whole textile industry and he was not biased to any particular segment of the industry. However, he made it clear that he would never let the apparel sector close down due to short of yarn, as it may lead to joblessness of eight to nine million labour force in the downstream industry.