All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) is in favour of granting Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status to India as business standards would improve in competition with Indian textile industry, said Convener WTO committee Akber Sheikh. He was holding an interactive session with trainees from Civil Service Academy along with Aptma EC member M I Khurram at the Aptma office.
Civil service academy trainees from a common training programme for 12 different cadres visited Aptma to know about Aptma's stance on MFN status to India.
The delegation was briefed that textile was a major export industry in Pakistan, which was competing India. A total of 395 Aptma member mills were making over $ 10 billion exports annually.
Convener Aptma further pointed out that Pakistan textile industry was operating without any subsidy against regional textile countries including India, Bangladesh and China.
He said the WTO was promulgated with a promise of fair and free trade but our neighbouring countries had yet to cover a long distance to meet standards being observed in Pakistan.
The Bangladesh textile industry was enjoying additional facility of market access, he added. Khurram said the textile industry was the largest investor in Pakistan where entrepreneurs had worked hard despite hostile attitude of policymakers. He said Indian policymakers were supporting their industry in the form of Internet rate and trade subsidies. Also, there was no power cut in Bangladesh where spinning industry had started flourishing due to a friendly approach of their policymakers.