Addressing a press conference, APTMA chairman Aamir Fayyaz said he had four meetings with the prime minister over the last four months, where he apprised him of the worsening textile exports due to high cost of doing business.
“The prime minister was kind enough to hold lengthy discussions in each meeting in order to devise the export-led growth strategy,” Fayyaz said. “We explained him about high cost of doing business that had impacted export sector viability and also apprised the government of the support extended by the competing countries like India, Bangladesh and Vietnam to their export industries.”
Syed Ali Ahsan, chairman, APTMA Punjab, said the package would boost Pakistan’s exports and positive results would be visible in the next six month. He added that though the issue of energy availability had been resolved to an extent, the issue of high cost of energy was yet to be resolved.
He urged the government to provide power at Rs 7/kWh, and gas including RLNG at Rs 600 per MMBTU to the textile industry across the country.
Under the Rs 180 billion package, duty drawback on exports have been announced at 4 per cent on greige fabric, 5 per cent on processed fabric, 6 per cent on home textile made-ups, and 7 per cent on garments against realisation of import proceeds. The package also abolishes sales tax levied on import of textile machinery. (RKS)
Fibre2Fashion News Desk – India