Is there a lesson for Indian spinners from Pakistan?

The biggest concern for the Pakistani textile sector has been the unresolved energy crisis. The industry is plagued by a chronic electricity and gas shortage. It has to resort to using gensets, whose cost of power is very high. Production is down by around 30 percent due to shortage of these twin energy troubles.

“The Pakistani textile sector has not invested in expansion in the last five years. It has been hoping from one crisis to another, without taking any support from the government”, said, Mr Gohar Ejaz – Chairman of Ejaz Group and also former Chairman of the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA).

“We are only looking forward to a regular supply of energy from the government. APTMA has played a very big role in facilitating the growth of the spinning industry and we are fortunate, that the government now provides a sympathetic ear to our demands”.

When asked to comment on the technology of the Pakistani textile sector, he informed, “Most of the spinning mills have been modernized between 2001 and 2005, which means our technology is less than a decade old, which gives us the edge in cotton yarn exports”.

Speaking about the debt of the Pakistani spinning industry, he said with pride, “The spinning sector which had an overall exposure of around US $12 billion when the modernization drive was initiated in early 2000 is now down to less than one billion US dollars”.  

The Pakistani textile industry per se has never opposed exports of cotton even when the cotton output has been down. Explaining the reason, he says, “We always believe in a free-trade policy and this policy has helped even our cotton farmers achieve greater income, which we believe in turn will lead to a higher cotton production”.

On the cotton industry, “Due to the efforts of APTMA and various cotton research institutes in Pakistan, we expect our cotton production to increase dramatically in the next few years. In the new cotton season we expect cotton output to leap to 17 million bales from 15 million bales in the 2011-12 season”. 

Fibre2fashion News Desk - India