Mohsin Aziz has taken over the charge of the office of Chairman of All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) for the term 2011-12 in the 53rd Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Association held on September 30 simultaneously in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad over video conferencing system.
Mohsin Aziz is country's seasoned industrialist earning highest reputation amongst the business community in Pakistan. He has attained multiple portfolios in various public as well as private organisations of Pakistan and also served this Association as APTMA Chairman for the Year 1999-2000. Currently, Mohsin Aziz is the Chief Executive of A. J. Textile Mills Ltd, Peshawar and Chairman of Aziz Group of Industries comprising a number of industrial units spread in the province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
He was Provincial Minister for Industries, Commerce, Labour, Mineral Development, Technical Education and Manpower, Government of NWFP in 2002. He was on the Board of Directors of State Bank of Pakistan twice from December 2003 to December 2006 and December 2006 to December 2009.
Addressing the AGM, he said that many issues had been tackled in the past but still energy (gas and electricity) remained to be the major problem especially in Punjab.
"Presently, we have no short-term solution to the present gas curtailment and electricity load shedding programme but the future programme has to be sorted out so that at least uncertainties be removed because it is not possible to operate on alternate fuel, which is not only expensive but one can not survive. Therefore, his first priority will be the energy issue to tackle it on regular basis."
He further said the issue to cut-down the cost of doing business and most importantly the high mark-up rate needed to bring down to a single digit.
APTMA Chairman also said that it was very important for industry to grow and become competitive in the world. "With such high interest rate, uncertainty in power supply and current law & order situation, the textile industry specially export oriented industry needs a special package so that precious foreign exchange is brought in."
Market access is also one of the major areas we would be looking into as without this further growth and expansion would be difficult. He said that our slogan should be trade is better than aid.
Free market mechanism policy which was tempered with around two years ago is now on the right path but still the government has to be reminded again and again not to distract this policy of going forward.
"Although we have a good harvesting of cotton but still I feel that after the floods we will have sufficient cotton for our consumption but for better yields in cotton a dialogue should have to be continued for achieving the desired results in a scientific way" he said. He invited the members to come forward and contribute to chalk out recommendations to the government for arresting the economic recession and addressing the issues being faced by the textile industry.
Sheikh Muhammad Akbar and Tariq Saud also have been elected unopposed as APTMA Vice Chairmen from Punjab and Sindh-Balochistan regions respectively.-PR