Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA) and Multan Chamber of Commerce & Industry (MCCI) said, "We have no political motive nor we want to create any trouble for the present government but we want to save the sinking textile industry and its allied units due to pandemic coronavirus so that millions of people could be saved from joblessness and economy could be revived."
Addressing a press conference Chairman PCGA Javed Suhail Rehmani, Hafiz Abdul Latif Vice Chairman of PCGA, Sheikh Fazal Elahi President of Multan Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Former Chairman, Haji Muhammad Akram, Shehzad Ali Khan, Suhail Mehmood Haral, Ch Waheed Arshad, Mher Muhammad Ashraf Mahar, Sheikh Muhammad Asim Saeed, Khawaja Muhammad Azam, Khawaja Muhammad Arshad, Ch Khalid Bashir, Khawaja Riaz Hussain Siddiqui, Malik Tufail Ahmed, Ch Imtiaz Ahmed and Zaid Ali Khan have appealed to Prime Minister, Governor State Bank and heads of all commercial Banks to waive the mark-up on the limits of ginners and recovery of loans must be deferred for a year for survival of textile as well as ginning industry.
They presented a ten points' agenda which may help them coming out of crisis. They said that a huge amount of Rs 25 to 30 billion was stuck up in textile industry due to worldwide lockdown while 500,000 bales are lying unsold in stock. Now they are unable to repay bank loans plus mark-up thus government should waive the mark-up of January to June 2020.
They said that exemption of oil-cake (Khal) from sales tax be granted through a presidential ordinance. Refund claims of withholding tax of cotton ginners be paid which is pending for the last ten years. They reiterated their demand for relaxation in lockdown for Textile, weaving, spinning and other related sectors so that unsold stock could be disposed of.
They feared that cotton sowing would be badly hit if arrears of growers were not cleared immediately and dream of self sufficiency in cotton could not come true. Government should announce a bailout package so that payments to growers could be possible. Cotton stock must be exempted of sales tax, income tax and other taxes. They stressed the need for the revival of ginning industry which is facing severe liquidity crunch. They further demand that electricity tariff must be fixed at Rs10/unit like other exportable industries.-PR