The Government has not addressed the challenges hurting the exports as no effective measures are proposed in budget 2017-18 for industrial progress, increase in exports, reduction in cost of production and enhancing the competitive edge of Pakistani goods in international market.
Reacting to the budget measures, Chairman Pakistan Textile Exporters Association Ajmal Farooq, in a statement here on Monday, pointed out the glaring shortcomings of federal budget 2017-18. He expressed disappointment over not allocating sufficient funds for the incentives announced under Prime Minister's Export Led Growth Package. Under this package, the government has to pay Rs 10 billion per month whereas only Rs 2 billion has been released so far during the last five months, he added. Already, the government has not cleared the outstanding export refunds in spite of its several commitments and textile exporters are still deprived of its working capital. He said that activation of idle capacities in the value-added textile sector has also been ignored and no funds are allocated for revival of sick units which could help in fetching extra USD 1 billion in foreign exchange and create additional thousands of new jobs. In order to enhance competitive edge in international market, textile industry had demanded energy supply to export sectors at competitive rates of Rs 400/MMBTU for gas, and Rs 7/unit for electricity but no heed was paid towards this major issue.
The PTEA chairman was of the view that foremost objective of the budget is to give the direction and fillip to manufacturing, business and trade of the country enabling these sectors optimum utilization of available resources in order to maximize their output increasing their contribution and share to the GDP. But contrary to expectations, no heed had been paid towards this most important sector of national economy and architects of the budget have failed to realize the importance of major irritations besetting the economy and outline a strategy for their solutions, he said. There are no measures to help textile export sector reduce its cost of production and become competitive in global markets as increasing cost of doing business is a stumbling block in export growth.
Vice Chairman Muhammad Naeem termed the textile sector as an important segment of the economy which is already in grip of severe crisis and the industrial production is not in accordance with the built up manufacturing capacity. Due to this underutilization, the country is not fetching the full potential of foreign exchange earnings. Industry would be hit hard by the soaring prices of supplies and ancillary goods. High cost of raw materials and production inputs would create a chain effect of increases and ultimately place a burden on cost of production of industrial goods making the Pakistani goods uncompetitive, he contended.
The PTEA urged the Government to address the real and basic challenges of textile industry to give necessary fillip to exports and put the economy into deep gear. They requested the Prime Minister to immediately call the stake holders and settle their issues.