The All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) Patron-in-Chief, Gohar Ejaz, has welcomed the historic announcement of providing regionally competitive energy with a countrywide uniform price to the textile industry in the budget.
He has expressed his deep gratitude to Prime Minister Imran Khan for keeping his words of reviving the export-oriented textile industry on Tuesday. During his visit to APTMA office in the month of February this year, he added, Imran Khan had promised to bring textile industry out of crisis soon after coming into power.
The textile millers have taken a sigh of relief after a long period of non-viability and are expecting a revival of the industry in the days ahead. They have further expressed the hope that a long term export-led growth policy would soon be announced to double country’s exports and create more jobs and growth of economy.
He said the textile industry was burdened with energy cost worth Rs100 billion per annum during the last five years, resultantly, 30 percent production capacity was closed down, export-potential worth $4 billion became redundant and thousands of workers were laid off by the industry. Repeated calls by the APTMA kept falling on the deaf ears of the previous government that led to the closure of over 100 member mills’ operations, particularly in the province of Punjab.
He said APTMA leadership made a detailed presentation to Imran Khan during his visit to APTMA office in Lahore and suggested him the way forward to take the industry out of crisis and how to increase country’s exports. Imran Khan had made a clear cut commitment of introducing a uniform energy price for the exporting industry across the country, which would also be competitive regionally.
He said the textile industry envisages undertaking BMR and green field investment initiatives to create exportable surplus, sustainable jobs and economic growth.
Gohar Ejaz has extended an assurance on behalf of the textile industry for supporting the government in achieving its target of economic growth and overcoming the unprecedented trade deficit.
Published in Daily Times, September 19th 2018.
