FAISALABAD: The Pakistan Textile Exporters Association (PTEA) has demanded immediate approval of new textile policy which carries the measures to increase country's textile exports to US$ 26 billion by the year 2019.
In a statement here on Tuesday, Sohail Pasha, Chairman and Rizwan Riaz, Vice Chairman of the Association said that inordinate delay in the announcement of new textile policy was depriving textile sector of its due benefits, besides causing serious apprehensions and uncertainty in the major export-oriented sector.
They said the government announced several schemes in the budget 2014-15 as integral part of the new textile policy, but in the absence of any textile policy; the sector was not getting benefits from these schemes to improve its efficacy.
They said the government approved several schemes in the budget 2014-15 and a sum of Rs 80 billion was earmarked; however, in the absence of policy, these schemes could not be implemented.
Textile sector contributes about 55 percent to the country's total exports, besides providing direct and indirect millions of jobs; however, textile sector is being run without a textile policy for six months, they added.
They said that textile policy was being awaited because the different incentives could help exporters as only announcement of the package alone would not do the trick.
PTEA Chairman Sohail Pasha was of the view that Pakistan has failed to take full advantage of the trade concessions given by the European Union under the GSP Plus scheme because of lack of support from the government.
Previous textile policy expired on June 30, 2014, but it failed to meet the envisaged textile exports target of US$ 25 billion, which is currently no more than US$ 13.5 billion, he said, adding that main reasons behind the failure of the policy was non-implementation of different initiatives due to short releases of funds as the government discharged only Rs 26.75 billion against the commitment of Rs 188 billion.
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