In June’ 20, All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) Punjab Chairman Adil Bashir urged the government to announce a five-year export policy immediately. Commenting on the federal budget 2020-21. He said the APTMA was expecting a reduction in Sales Tax to five per cent if the government was not extending zero-rated status to the export-oriented industry to resolve the liquidity crunch due to stuck up refunds. Only this one step would also bring the unorganized sector into the tax net, he added.
He said, the textile industry was demanding a reduction in the turnover tax by half to the existing level of 1.5 per cent and enable the industry to compete with regional competitors.
Chairman APTMA Punjab, expressed the hope the government would announce the export policy without delay to attract fresh investment in the export-oriented sector, create jobs and put an end to the uncertainty about the continuity of government policies.
Moving forward 6 months, in the present day, Federal government has approved progressive and innovative Textile Policy 2020-25 in November.
Taking to its Twitter handle, All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) acknowledged Prime Minister Mr. Imran Khan and congratulated Finance Advisor, Dr. Abdul Hafeez Shaikh and Advisor for Commerce & Investment, Mr. Abdul Razak Dawood on approval of the 5-year textile policy. The association also thanked the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) for its support i.e. TERF, Refinancing Scheme for Wages, etc. during the pandemic.
As a consequence, the Textile Sector is operating at full capacity and going through an expansion, up-gradation with new factories being constructed to cater for additional demand. This has created approx. 200,000 and 5 million jobs shall be created if the policy is implemented in letter and spirit, the ATMA said further.
In its tweet, ATMA said that the textile industry assures the government that implementation of the policy will ensure the doubling of textile exports from $ 13 billion to $ 26 billion in five years.
