Chairman All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) Mohsin Aziz has lamented that the government has suspended electricity supply to industry to entertain cricket fans, speaks volumes about the government's priority towards the economic development of Pakistan.
The chairman APTMA has expressed fears that the textile millers would be left with no option but to close down their businesses if this non-serious trend continues.
The government should give priority to industry on entertainment, as entertainment with empty stomachs is a bane not boon for any society on the earth, he observed. He said the entertainment is though an important segment of a healthy society but having it at the cost of industrial growth is beyond comprehension.
According to him, power supply to the textile industry remained suspended countrywide for 10 hours on Sunday due to a pool match between cricket teams of India and Pakistan.
"Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani has desired uninterrupted power supply during cricket match. Accordingly, the power authorities suspended power supply to industrial units countrywide," he added.
The chairman APTMA said the textile industry was already underperforming due to unprecedented energy crisis in the country since November 2007, leading to 40 per cent capacity closure with a contraction of over a billion dollar export loss every month besides job losses. Mohsin criticised the economic managers for their indifferent attitude towards industrial growth of the country. Eventually, all efforts to attain market access from the European Union would prove useless in the face of non-serious attitude of the government policy makers, he deplored and said that market access could only be availed if export surplus was available with the industry.