FAISALABAD: Stakeholders will be taken on board to make the textile policy more effective, realistic, and result-oriented to fulfill the collective demands and re-fix priorities aiming to achieve futuristic targets.
This was stated by Amir M. Khan Marwat, Federal Secretary Textile Industry while addressing the members of the Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FCCI) here on Friday.
He acknowledged the importance of textile sector in the overall development of Pakistan and said that Pakistan was fourth major producer and third largest consumer country of cotton. Textile contributes 55% towards our total exports in addition to providing jobs to 40pc of total workforce.
He said that it was also playing a pivotal role in earning foreign exchange and bridging the wide gap between imports and exports.
The Secretary Textile industry said that Pakistan was earning 1 billion Dollar from I million bales of cotton but this equation failed to deliver when our cotton production touched its peak.
He said that after many ups and down in this industry, the GSP Plus status had once again given a new hope and opportunity to give a quantum jump to the dwindling textile exports and in this connection Ministry of textile industry was trying its best to extend maximum facilities to the textile sector.
However, he said that textile sector was facing multiple problems and Ministry of Textile Industry alone cannot solve all these problems and we have to consult other ministries for the issues falling within their domain like energy, finance and water and power. However, due to the importance of the textile sector, proper weightage is being given to the stand and opinion of this ministry.
About textile policy, the secretary said that the duration of previous policy had already been over but still it was in practice. On the other hand the draft of the new policy has also been completed and there was a proposal to re-promulgate the old policy with new dates as more consultation was required to finalize and approve the new textile policy. In this connection a meeting is expected very soon to fine-tune the new policy and stakeholders from Faisalabad would also be invited to attend it and give their input.
He requested president FCCI to write down a formal letter to the ministry so that a notification could be issued to add president FCCI on the board of director of the National Textile University. Similarly chamber should also give 3-4 names of leading and visionary textilers so that they could be invited in different meetings of the ministry to give their practical in-put in policy matters.
The secretary ministry of textile industry also appreciated the proposals for the betterment of the textile sector and said that these proposals should be presented in written form in order to make a productive and result-oriented progress on these points.
Earlier, Engineer Rizwan Ashraf President FCCI in his address of welcome underlined the importance of Faisalabad with special reference to its dynamic textile industry.
He said that this city had state-of-the-art units of textile sector and was earning approximately 6 Billion Dollars per annum for the country.
He said that despite of the economic importance, the textile sector was facing multiple problems. The protracted energy crisis is still persistent and government must revisit it priorities to give relief to the textile units.
Mian Farhan Latif chairman FCCI standing committee on revival of sick industrial units also underlined the importance of textile sector but observed that despite of the acknowledgment of the importance of textile sector practical relief is lacking. Due to this strategy, many units have been closed down while remaining are forced to work with 30-40 percent of their installed capacity.
He said that sick units if revived could earn an additional foreign exchange of 1 Billion dollar in addition to creating 80,000 to one lac jobs. Similarly the full chain of textile sector has potential to earn 27-28 billion dollars within few years without any new investment if facilitated with necessary incentives.
He said that a committee was constituted but after political uncertainty and sit-ins no meeting of this committee could be held. He demanded to once again reactivate this committee in consultation with the concerned sectors.
During question-answer session Mian Javed Iqbal, Syed Zia Alamdar Hussain, Muhammad Amjad Khawaja, Haji Muhammad Rafi, Shahid Ahmed Sheikh, Rehan Nasim Bhararah, Talib Husssain Rana, Farooq Yousaf, Rana Ikhlaq Ahmed and Inaam Afzal Kan raised interesting questions which were well responded.
Later, Mian Javed Iqbal of Sitara Group presented a FCCI memento to Amir M Khan Marwat.
Comments
Comments are closed.