FAISALABAD City News

Ministry urged to take up GIDC issue with govt

From Our Correspondent

FAISALABAD: Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FCCI) acting president Syed Zia Alamdar Hussain has stressed the Ministry of Textile Industry to take up the issue of gas infrastructure development cess (GIDC) with the government to ensure its payment from the refund regime instead of pressurising industrialists to pay it from their already depleting financial resources.

In a statement here on Monday, he said that the government intended to expand the gas distribution infrastructure that needed huge financial resources in addition to incurring about Rs 100 billion per annum on its repair and maintenance. He said that no doubt Pakistani economy was recovering due to the viable government policies but still the cost of doing business in Pakistan was on the higher side as compared to the other regional countries.

Later, addressing the first national conference on technical textile in the National Textile University (NTU), FCCI acting president Syed Zia Alamdar Hussain said that technical textile was the future of Pakistani exports. Therefore, the government should evolve a comprehensive strategy to adopt and promote it, he added. He said that Pakistan was blessed with fertile land and was among the top 10 textile exporting countries of the world. He said: “We are also ranked as the fourth largest cotton producing country of the world.”