Textile millers didn’t accept the proposed recommendations made by the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on National Food Security and Research to impose a ban on the import of cotton.
According to Gohar Ijaz, Group Leader, All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA), “By purposing the ban, it seems that the standing committee wants to halt the production of textile mills, layoff half the workforce and confine the country’s exports to $8.5 billion only.”
Ijaz stated that around 10 million textile workers across the country were processing and converting cotton bales into textile exports worth $13.5 billion and that they were trying to increase the country’s exports to $25 billion in the next five years. “We need to import cotton if we want our textile industry to thrive, as we only produced around 8.5 million bales this year against the target of 15 million bales,” he said.
Aamir Sheikh, APTMA Punjab Vice-Chairman stated that against the consumption demand of 15 million bales, the country was expected to produce only 7 million bales in the next year. “We need to import long-staple cotton to produce fine counts, besides importing contamination-free cotton to make high-end fabric,” Sheikh said.
