Minister for long term strategies for textile sector

FAISALABAD: Short and long term remedial strategies will be made to drag out textile sector from the current crisis.

It was said by State Minister for Commerce and Textile Muhammad Akram Ansari while addressing a function at the Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Saturday.

The minister asked the all stakeholders to submit their workable proposals within a week. He said that textile sector was facing problems like high mark up, power and gas loadshedding few years ago but now these issues had been resolved and now new types of problems had surfaced.

He asked FCCI president Muhammad Saeed Sheikh to make a committee of all stakeholders to give short and long term proposals enabling him to put these before Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi. He said that being a major cotton producing country, we must review our strategy that why our textile exports were declining.

“We must switch over towards value addition by making conscious efforts to reduce cost of production”, he said. It was the responsibility of all stakeholders to fulfill their duties to achieve their objectives, he added.

It was now my duty to resolve the genuine grievances of the textile sector, he added. Haji Muhammad Akram Ansari said that in this region, Bangladesh, China and India were far ahead of us in textile exports.

He said that the government would also try its optimum best to give maximum facilities to the textile sector. He assured that he would also discuss the issue of the electricity and gas supply at reduced rates to the textile sector. He said that the cabinet meeting would be held on Tuesday in which he would try to talk to Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi regarding Rs 180 billion textile package and issuance of notification for the release of remaining Rs 120 billion for the period from July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2018.

He said that he would also request him to provide this relief without any condition of 10 per cent increase in existing export of the claimants. Responding to the appointment of commercial consular from private sector, he said that not only commercial consular but our ambassadors should also work for the promotion of Pakistani exports in their concerned country.

He also assured to take up the issue of difference in gas prices for Punjab and Sindh with the concerned ministries.