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| APTMA plans protest march against export losses |
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Sunday, January 06, 2008
LAHORE: The All Pakistan Textile Mills Association has planned to stage a protest march against export losses of $1 billion to the textile sector of the province due to the current energy shortage that is expected to continue for three months.
APTMA Chairman (Punjab) Akber Sheikh stated this while addressing a press conference on Saturday. He said there are 300 textile mills in Punjab that are suffering an average loss of Rs10 million per month due to the power shortage.
He said the basic textile industry is thus incurring cumulative loss of Rs3 billion per month.
He said the entire textile sector of the province exports products worth $700 per month. He said the current crisis has cut the production and exports by 50 per cent.
He said the industry would lose exports worth $1 billion due to energy and gas shortage in three months.
He said this would result in substantial job losses and would hurt the investment climate of the country.
He warned of many defaults on bank loans as the industry is not in a position to pay even other recurring expenses.
He said 100 APTMA member mills have already decided in the emergent meeting to close their mills and lay off workers.
He said the members have planned to stage a protest march from the APTMA office to the Chief Minister House and then to WAPDA against the power shortage.
Shaikh questioned the wisdom of providing over 225,000 domestic gas connections and 400 CNG connections when the SNGPL was already facing gas shortage.
He said the gas provider has now been instructed by the government to provide 10 per cent more domestic connections than provided last year.
He regretted these politically-motivated decisions and urged the planners to keep economy out of politics.
Regarding other issues faced by the industry he said the issue would remain unresolved unless Pakistan fulfills all its cotton needs domestically.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
