ISLAMABAD, Mar 21 (APP):Advisor to Prime Minister on Commerce, Textile, and Investment Abdul Razzak Dawood Thursday said the country’s textile sector was now picking up due to prudent policies of the government and hoped the sector would help surpassing the overall exports target of $25 billion by end of current fiscal year.
“In a recent meeting with stakeholders from textile sector, I assured them that the government will fully support the sector if they upgrade in all aspects of the sector,” he said while briefing the Senate Standing Committee on Commerce and Textile here.
The Advisor informed that after Chinese assurance to import textile products from Pakistan, the sector would witness further boom.
“The Chinese assurance of importing goods worth of $1 billion is out of Free Trade Agreement and it will be fully exempted from duties,” he added.
Under the agreement, he said China would import 350,000 tons of cotton yarn, 250,000 tons of rice, and 350,000 tons of sugar.
Dawood said China however did not agree to import wheat and potato as the commodities needed a long process of testing.
He said the textile industry needed revamp in every steps from seed selection, pesticides, cotton prod production of cotton to manufacturing of textile.
In Pakistan, he said “We have more seed companies than in India but the quality of cotton seed is still far poor than that in the neighboring country”.
The Advisor further informed that the power looms manufacturers had approached him to give subsidy but he had offered them the option of creating a fund in collaboration with Japanese government under which they would get loan at 4 percent mark up rate instead of 12 percent.
The meeting was informed that Pakistan was in process of negotiation with China on FTA and after the finalization of FTA, Pakistan would get the similar benefits as that of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), India, and Bangladesh.
Later briefing the meeting, Secretary Textile Syed Iftikhar Hussain Babar said that the global demand of polyester was increasing and the synthetic textiles comprised 80 percent of total textile products.
Chairman of the committee Senator Mirza Muhammad Afridi said that the ministry should fully focus on manufacturing synthetic textiles to meet the global demand.
