International labour standards: PTEA lauds GIZ’s role in bringing sustainability to textile industry

FAISALABAD: The industrial growth lies in going global and sustaining the industrial growth through achieving the global business requirements and expanding the global market share. With the objective of bringing sustainability in textile industry, GIZ Textiles project is providing technical assistance to improve productivity, social and ecological aspects.

Addressing an exclusive session at Pakistan Textile Exporters Association (PTEA) here on Tuesday, technical expert of GIZ, a worldwide service provider in the field of international cooperation for sustainable development, emphasized the importance of ratifying and implementing international labour standards for the industrial sectors.

They admitted that textile industry with its major share in the economy is Pakistan’s most important sector. It contributes approximately 8.5% to the country’s gross domestic product and 60% of exports. Over 15 million people are employed in this sector; however, the productivity in this industry is low compared to other countries in the region. There has been little initiative for environmentally friendly growth as large quantities of water, chemicals and energy are consumed in production, they said.

The SME sector is in dire need of improving working conditions and the associated competitive potential; whereas demand from international buyers for sustainably produced textiles is increasing. Pakistan’s textile industry faces a major modernization process in which sustainable production is a success factor.

They identified a number of avenues where the textile industries in collaboration with GIZ can bring improvements in the work practices thus enabling more exports to Europe. They invited the industrialists to implement the international labour standards within industries to enhance country’s WGI ranking.

Earlier, Ameer Ahmad, the Vice Chairman PTEA welcomed the guests and briefly enlighten the core functions of PTEA. He appreciated the role of GIZ Pakistan in enhancing the compliance with global standards. He said that foreign trade has a lot of attached responsibilities as the international buyers are increasingly getting sensitive about ethical sourcing and international compliances. Textile industry is keen to collaborate with GIZ for improvement of working conditions and implementation of International Labour Standards. This move will lead to increase the foreign trade volume of the country and would upgrade the WGI ranking of Pakistan. He assured full support and co-operation to GIZ for bringing sustainability in textile industry.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022