The Pakistan Readymade Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association, (Prgmea) has urged the Commerce Minister to issue directives to stop the auction of growth quota in violation of the recommendations made by the Quota Supervisory Council (QSC).
In a fax to Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar the Prgmea Chairman Tahir Aziz said that the QSC, in fourth meeting held on February 9, had recommended that the balance growth quota should be distributed 50 percent each among the performance-holders on First Come First Served (FCFS) basis.
He said that since the recommendations of the QSC had been ignored, the auction should be stopped unless the policy decided at the meeting was fully implemented.
Elaborating on reasons for the stoppage of the auction, the Prgmea Chairman said that this was the last year of quota, which would be abolished on January 1, 2005, under World Trade Organisation (WTO regime.
He further pleaded that the allocation of quota to the performance-holders would discourage the quota trading and hence the premiums would go down and the new comers could get the quota on FCFS. This quota must be non-transferable, he added.
The performance-holders, he said, were the best users of the growth quota because they would build up confidence with the buyers for continuation of business during post-2004 era
The Prgmea urged the ministry to take the QSC into confidence before implementing any policy.
It also requested the convening of another meeting of the QSC immediately, to revise the quota policy for 2004 to meet the challenges of the quota-free period.