Pakistan Readymade Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association (Pregmea) acting Chairman Sajid Saleem Minhas has on Thursday appreciated the Federal Textile Industry Minister for announcing substantial reduction in duty in the next Federal Budget on imports of textile raw material and finished items. He said that would help the textile value added export sector to face the challenges posed in the world trade organisation (WTO) textile quota free regime policy.
He further said it was very heartening to note the federal minister had not minced words and had taken a lead in informing the nation that smuggling was causing loss to the national exchequer of around dollars 3 billion every year.
According to him, the minister was fully in the picture of disastrous situation the textile value added industry was facing due to straight imposition of 12 percent customs tariff by the European Union and all hopes of concessions from Europe/USA had dashed to the ground.
The recommendations made by the Textile Associations for minimum subsidy up to 10 percent out of Export Development Fund (EDF), which was absolutely no burden on the government revenue and was contributed by the entire exporting community, had also not been extended.
We also sought duty free import of raw material and accessories to cope with the confronting challenges.
He said the industry had already brought to the notice of the government the plight of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), as the small exporters were receiving no export orders. "The big foreign buyers are openly demanding huge reduction in prices to match competitors' quotations, especially from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, China and India.
Unless the subsidy is extended forthwith, it is feared the industry's output and sales abroad will diminish to unbelievable proportion," he added.
He appealed to the minister to prevail upon his cabinet colleagues to come to the rescue of the textile value added industry and save the small exporters from complete extinction from exports.
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