All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) is seeking removal of four percent custom duty on import of raw cotton to meet the domestic demand. Zahid Mazhar, Senior Vice Chairman APTMA, said on Wednesday that despite APTMA demand, the government is not removing custom on import of cotton. He said that the government's move is against the interests of the country as the domestic cotton production is gradually reducing and industry is compelled to import cotton for domestic consumption. The country witnessed reduction of cotton crop of two successive years by 4 million bales each, he added.
"The removal of import duty and sales tax was imperative so that raw material is available to the industry at competitive prices enabling it to play its role in contributing to the employment, exports and GDP of the country," he added.
He further said that the reduction of local cotton crop by about 35 percent in each of two successive seasons has placed extra burden on the ailing textile industry to import about 4 million bales of cotton each year to meet the consumption requirement of the spinning industry.
Mazhar reminded the government that the Federal Minister for Finance Ishaq Dar in his Budget Speech for 2016-17 has accepted that GDP has declined by about 0.5 percent due to the failure of cotton crop by about 35 percent in the previous fiscal year.
He repeated the demand for urgent measures to be taken by the government to arrest the decline in the size of the domestic cotton crop including better crop management, improving the performance of cotton research institutes adopting appropriate seed technologies.
The senior vice chairman APTMA urged the federal government for removal of 4 percent import duty on raw cotton for cheap availability of raw material.