The government should take cognizance of the "gas crisis of textile industry" and take immediate steps to endure the industry and focus should also be on the value addition as the textile sector needed to enhance quality and production capabilities.
Addressing a joint press conference, Rana Altaf Ahmad, Senior Vice Chairman, Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturers & Exporters Association (North Zone), Sohail Pasha, Chairman, Pakistan Textile Exporters Association (PTEA), Idress Ahmad, Acting Regional Chairman of All Pakistan Textile Processing Mills Association (APTPMA), Nadeem Allahwala, Senior Vice President of FCCI, Rana Ikhlaq Ahmad, ex-chairman, All Pakistan Cotton Powerlooms Association, and senior industrialists Muhammad Amjad Khawaja, Sheikh Khalid Habib and Mian Altaf Ahmad strongly demanded the restoration of gas supply to textile export sector immediately. The Prime Minister should intervene and restore gas supply to precious forex earning sector as this would lead to missing export orders, capital flight, labour lay-off, worsening law and order situation and decline in government revenue, they added.
Textile associations' leaders said that sudden cut in gas supply would push the textile industry to the wall that was already facing huge problems owing to the high input cost and other issues. Unilateral policies and decisions without taking stakeholders into the loop should be stopped as the country, at present, is going through a very serious economic crisis in terms of escalating cost of production, they said. The government on the one hand is contemplating to increase target for industrial growth and on the other such harsh decisions are posing severe threats to achieving the said target. As a result of this anti-industrial act, the textile export industry in Punjab will nose-dive. They termed energy shortage the prime cause of economic instability and decline in industrial growth as major production capacity of textile industry is already dysfunctional due to energy shortage. Energy shortfall had totally been shifted to the Punjab industry.
The PTEA Chairman said the textile industry was already running below the capacity due to energy constraints, ultimately affecting industry's potential to grow fast and earn foreign exchange for the country. Suspension of gas supply would hamper production of textiles and halt the industrial activities. It would not only hamper the industrial growth, but have put jobs of millions of workers at stake. Exports were consecutively showing declining trend and export numbers in coming months might be even worse as the textile industry in Punjab has been deprived of its basic fuel, he apprehended. Even after looking at dismal performance on the export front, if the government even then resorts to cut gas supply to industry and manufacturing sector, exports would further fall and lesser foreign exchange would be earned. This would not only aggravate country's balance of trade, but will also create fresh wave of joblessness, they concluded.