Khawaja M. Zubair, Chairman, the Karachi Cotton Association expressed serious concern on the extremely negative impact placed on Pakistan's economy especially on Textile Industry due to Covid-19 Pandemic.
He appreciated all necessary steps of the government to control the spread of Covid-19 Pandemic and assured full cooperation and support to the efforts and measures taken by the Government in this regard.
KCA Chairman said that the export-oriented textile industry was facing worst-ever liquidity crisis due to drastic slow down of domestic as well as international markets and delay in payments from them, in addition to cancellation of export orders even from big organizations and large scale buying houses.
He also stated that severe situation needs urgent/special measures to save the export oriented textile industry from the negative economic impact of Covid-19 pandemic, otherwise, the export oriented textile industry would totally be collapsed due to severe liquidity crunch, resulting in loss of much needed foreign exchange for the country and create massive unemployment as in such situation, the local textile mills have no capacity to retain the workers and pay utility bills.
Chairman, the KCA stated that in order to resolve the problems and difficulties of the local textile industry, the Government should announce immediately the following rescue measures to save the textile industry from total collapse due to negative impact of COVID-19 Pandemic:
i) Defer the payment of gas and electricity bills by the textile industry for a period of at least three months.
ii) Defer the payment of interest on short term loans for at least three months.
iii) Bring-down the rate of interest to five percent or below.
iv) Allow running of those textile mills which have labor residing within their residential colonies, as well as, those export oriented units which have export orders in-hand.
The Chairman also stated that all the industries/workplaces which will be allowed by the government to open and operate should adhere strictly to the compliance of the SOPs stipulated by the government from time to time during this Covid-19 Pandemic.-PR