"It is feared that thousands of SMEs may close down in next few months with drastic downfall in country's exports and foreign exchange earnings, resulting into un-employment of hundreds of thousands of workers, as only textile sector earns 60 percent of total export in Pakistan," Ijaz Khokhar added.
He also said the already businesses were limited, as most of the orders had been cancelled or put on hold. As a result, majority of industrial units are running at minimum capacity of 25 percent but still they continue to retain the workers on jobs without any work and with full wages.
"This is really a huge burden on the industry and very difficult circumstances to survive to retain the whole labour for a long period. To keep the industry live major problem is cash flow and the zero-rating facility is the only way for survival," Khokar said.
He proposed that Pakistan export industry could also survive through switching over to the production of protective equipment, capturing the ever-increasing post-cornonavirus global market share.