KARACHI: Khawar Noorani, chairman of the standing committee on imports and convener of the yarn trade committee of the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) and a former chairman of the Pakistan Yarn Merchants Association (PYMA), has urged Prime Minister Imran Khan to withdraw the decision to impose two percent regulatory duty (RD) on polyester spun yarn to save the textile industry from disaster.
He feared that if the relief was not provided to deal with the serious economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the textile industry would reach the brink of collapse, and traders and industrialists would go bankrupt.
Khawar Noorani, in an appeal to Prime Minister Imran Khan, said that the textile industry had to rely on imported polyester spun yarn (5509-2100, 5509-5100) to continue production activities as local manufacturers were unable to meet the demand of industries, and even today, local industry could only meet about 30 to 35 percent of the yarn's demand while 65 to 70 percent of the goods were imported. Despite this, the local manufacturers of yarn had established a monopoly and were taking full advantage of lack of government supervision by setting arbitrary prices for yarn.
"The government has put the entire textile industry in jeopardy to benefit the local yarn manufacturers as the local manufacturers are taking full advantage of the imposition of taxes on imported raw materials," he added.
He said that the local textile industry had been facing huge losses due to exorbitant taxes on imported raw materials though the textile industry was already going through severe crisis due to COVID-19 pandemic, and now with a two percent regulatory duty on polyester spun yarn, the textile industry would be completely destroyed.
Khawar Noorani appealed to Prime Minister Imran Khan to not to impose two percent regulatory duty on polyester spun yarn and save the local textile industry from sinking. If textile factories were closed due to excessive taxes and consequent exorbitant production costs then thousands of workers would lose their jobs.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
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