APTMA pleads govt to help salvage cotton textile sector

01 May '10

2 min read

Owing to exorbitant international cotton prices and the unreasonable policies laid down by the Ministry of Textile Industry, the textile industries will be unable to acquire new cotton crop from cultivators, informed Gohar Ejaz, Chairman, All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA-Punjab)

APTMA head appealed, to the President and Prime Minister to look in to the matter and thereby, prevent the Ministry of Textile from driving the industry towards a dead end. This will help safeguard the farmers, textile industry workforce and also help retain valuable foreign exchange.

With prices of cotton in international markets touching $0.95 per pound, the spinning industry is unable to spin and sell yarn to the domestic auxiliary industry at subsidized prices, said Ejaz

He further said that, currently at a time of harvest when new crops will start arriving in the market, almost 70 percent of the $7 billion worth textile industry is nearing a downfall. The prime sufferers in such a case will then be the cotton farmers.

More so, the Ministry of Textile's irrational interference in the free trade mechanism has lead to severe crisis wherein most of the spinners have stocks sufficient enough to carry out production only till May 30, thus, he anticipates that around 70 percent of the spinning mills will then pull down their shutters by May end.

Only 30 percent of the mills have stocks that are sufficient enough for 90 days, while the remaining 70 percent mills who mainly supply yarn to the domestic markets have stocks for 30 days, he added.

The APTMA leader also informed that, though the Ministry of Textile has assured to garner help to improve the cotton import facilitation measures, till date no concrete steps have been taken to tackle the crisis.

Fibre2fashion News Desk - India

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