Gohar Ejaz, Chairman, All Pakistan Textile Mills Association has stressed complete harmony between various segments of the Textile Sector to make meeting with President, Asif Ali Zardari, on Monday, 23rd May at Islamabad most productive and result-oriented. He was addressing a Meeting with local industrialists at Regional Office of the APTMA here this afternoon.
He said that the Textile Sector is in deep crisis for the last many years. Each Sector was making isolated efforts, which failed to achieve the required results. He added that being APTMA Chief, he has been making strenuous efforts for the last 7 months to promote harmony and understanding between various segments of the Textile Sector.
Pinpointing the problems, Gohar Ejaz said that Energy Crisis, non-availability of Gas, deteriorating law and order situation and high interest rates has virtually crippled the whole Textile Chain and the individual and isolated efforts made by various segments has further complicated the situation instead of resolving the issues. He expressed despondency over his meeting with Chief Minister, Punjab, Shahbaz Sharif, and said that 10 to 11 hours loadshedding of electricity in winter is tolerable but how we can bear it in scorching summer heat. Similarly, Gas shortage is understandable in winter when its consumption is high but there is no justification of shortage in present hot season, which its consumption is minimum.
Continuing, he said that this situation is prevalent in Punjab only which has darkened the industrial future of this province. He said that these discouraging factors are forcing the industrialists to install or shift their industries to Sindh and Frontier where the Gas and Electricity is available in sufficient quantity as compared with Punjab. He feared that if this situation materialised there would be no gas and electricity for the Punjab.
He was critical of the wastage of research funds and said that government had allocated 1000 Million for Cotton Research, out of which 200 Million is contributed by APTMA. He said there was no plausible Research and funds are being wasted for the last 20 years on fabulous projects, Similarly, our taxation system was incompatible with the ground economic and financial realities.