National Food Security and Research (NFS&R) Minister Sikandar Hayat Khan Bosan visited the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) on Monday. Central Chairman APTMA Aamir Fayyaz welcomed the federal minister at the APTMA Punjab office.
While addressing the event, Chairman APTMA said that the failure of the cotton crop production is the root cause of the failure of the textile industry of Pakistan. He also at that the use domestic cotton is always the priority of textile industry. The drop in production of cotton has left no option else than to procure the cotton at a higher price as compared to that of the import parity. He also said that “This situation has inflicted further adverse impact on the growth of textile industry and the situation is not likely to be addressed without an intervention from the government.”
The high cost of business also has had a huge impact on the reduction of exports in the textile industry. More fuel to the fire is added by the shortage of raw materials.
Catching large-scale closing of spinning mills due to the shortage of raw materials, Chairman APTMA insisted the federal minister remove incidentals, for example, the 4% customs duty and 5% sales tax, on import stage from 1st of January as was agreed upon and announce the export, led growth package to overcome high cost of doing business.
He also said that: “There should not be a restriction of any sort on the import of cotton as long as the shortage of cotton persists in the country,” he added that the data up to 15th of December 2016 suggests that the net production of cotton is approximately about 10.5 million bales while that of the industry requirements are about 14.5 million bales. According to his statement “Already, the industry consumption has been dropped from 16 million bales to 14.5 million bales due to a closure of mills.”
He suggested the government must take solid steps on the war footing basis to increase cotton production. He suggested that this can be done by supporting the farmers in all parts of the country. Responding to the concerns of APTMA, the federal minister assured to taking the concerns to higher management of the country.
