FAISALABAD: Textile exports declined by 1,333 million dollars over the last seven months and if the recommended 30 billion rupees were not allocated in the budget, the downfall of textile export will be of two billion dollars by the end of current fiscal.

These apprehensions were expressed by Pakistan Textile Exporters Association Chairman Rana Arif Tauseef in a press statement here on Tuesday.

Barring first three months of the current financial year, the textile exports recorded continuous decline ranging from 10 percent to 19 percent over the last seven months, he elaborated, adding that in the ongoing last month the decline would further be widened.

Touching on different irritants in the way of textile exports, PTEA Chief said that huge amounts of exporters were stuck up in local taxes drawback scheme, custom rebate, sales tax and federal excise duty refund. "If these funds of exporters are released, the exporters would be able to expand their export."

He stated that Ministry of Textile Industry had recommended allocation of 30 billion rupees for local taxes drawback but this recommendation had not been included in the budget.

He urged the government to take cognizance of the difficulties being faced by the exporters as well as the dipping of textile exports and to take immediate measures to allocate 30 billion rupees.

PTEA Chairman also took exception to allocation of 10 billion rupees to TDAP and said that since the exporters were paying 0.25 percent export development fund, this amount should not be allocated to TDAP but to exporters to help increase the exports of the country.

He demanded that the cost of doing business should be reduced and unnecessary burden on exports should be lessened. In this regard, he demanded the removal of protective duty on imported inputs like caustic soda, filament yarn, nitrogen, screens, dyes and chemicals used for manufacturing of export goods. This would enable the exporters in reducing the cost of production and become price competitive with regional rivals on export front, he said. Alternately the exporters should be allowed deemed duty drawback against those inputs, he added.

He further demanded that 30 billion rupees recommended by the Ministry of Textile Industry should be allocated to textile exporters for various refund regimes.

Elaborating, he said, huge funds of exporters were stuck up in local taxes drawback scheme, custom rebate, research and development scheme, sales tax and excise duty refund scheme. "The exporters are presently confronted with liquidity crunch and are not in position to increase their export turnover."

There was dire need to provide impetus to exporters in order to stem the declining trend in textile exports which, having dipped 16 percent over the last seven months, were estimated to further stoop by two billion dollars by the end of current fiscal, he added.

PTEA Chairman urged the budget makers to take a realistic view of economic realities and to set in motion appropriate remedial measures to lift the economy and textile exports from the negative path, and emphasised the urgency in view of short time available to put the things in order.