Prgmea demands establishment of Apparel Board

Pakistan Readymade Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association (Prgmea) has urged the government to establish Pakistan Apparel Board (PAB) in the country to promote the exports of the value-added garments from Pakistan instead of exporting raw cotton, yarn and gray fabric from other countries.
Talking to newsmen at his office here, Prgmea Central Chairman Ejaz A. Khokhar said the early establishment of proposed PAB now had become vital for the promotion of value-added garments exports.
He said Pakistan's economical survival was only in value-added exports, thus the exports of the raw materials should immediate be discouraged in the larger interest of the country. He said Pakistan's apparel industry was in crisis and the government should reduce the utility cost to 25 percent for garments exporting units just to pull out the industry from the existing crisis.
Prgmea central Chairman also urged the federal government to immediate divide Pakistan's textile sector into three sub-sectors ie ginning, spinning and weaving sub-sector, all apparel knit and weaven sub-sector and home textile sub-sector.
He said the main reason of textile sector's division into three sub-sectors was that all those sub-sectors should interact with the government individually and all the export policies and export targets should be fixed in active consultation with all these stakeholders.
He said that all the three sub-sectors of the main textile sector would have different processing to each other and they could perform well in better way if they would be working separately.
He demanded immediate representation of the garments sector in the Board of the Governors of Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP), as there was no representation of this sector in TDAP's Board of the Governors.
If the direly needed Level Playing Field was provided us by the government as compared to India, Bangladesh and China, then we guarantee to double the garments exports from Pakistan within the next three years, Prgmea central chairman said. We could also generate the 200 times enhanced manpower for the garments industry, he added.
Prgmea Central Chairman also urged the federal government to declare all the garments units (exporting 90 percent) as Export Processing Units, adding that the Export Development Fund should be waved for the next years.
Parts and sewing machines should be made tax-free, while the taxes for the apparel sector should be zero-rated, he said, and added it would be resulted into the upgradation of apparel industry.
He said all the value-added components including accessories and raw materials should be made duty-free, while the existing Research and Development should be continued till 2010, as the government had totally ignored it in the federal budget, resultantly the modernisation and skill development of the small and medium enterprises would soon be stopped in the country.
Now, all the taxes including EOBI and social security should be combined, as the government had not announced any parameters for verifying the gross domestic product figures given in the budget, he added.