MoU inked to attract $375mln into textile sector

LAHORE: Pakistan Readymade Garments Manufacturers & Exporters Association (PRGMEA) on Monday signed memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Ecommerce Gateway Pakist5an, a leading trade fair organiser, to attract foreign investment worth $375 million into textile sector. 

“A number of Chinese firms have shown interest in relocating their textile, garment and accessories production units to Punjab with an investment of at least $25 million per unit,” said Ijaz Khokhar, central chairman PRGMEA said addressing the concluding ceremony of Textile Asia Trade Exhibition. 

Khokhar said the foreign companies were also committed to transfer their technologies, besides buying back Pakistani products after value-addition here (Pakistan), leading to enhanced local export and lowering Pakistan trade deficit with China. 

“We will form joint ventures with local companies from Gujranwala, Lahore, Sialkot, and Faisalabad. We will also train the local engineers in manufacturing spare parts of sewing and textile machines and then buy them back them for export to China,” the PRGMEA chairman quote the Chinese companies as saying. 

He said the Pakistan Readymade Garments Manufacturers & Exporters Association and Ecommerce Gateway signed the agreement to continue to jointly conduct this mega textile event in future on annual basis. “Around 52,000 trade visitors registered their presence in the textile fair in three days,” Khokhar said. 

Jawwad Chaudhry, vice chairman PRGMEA, said the machinery and equipment displayed at the exhibition were of immense utility to manufacturers producing value added products for increasing volume of exports.  “I hope that local businessmen would benefit from this technology by adding value to their products,” Chaudhry said. 

He observed the local textile sector's whole chain was also invited to attend this country's largest textile show. “The exhibiting countries included Austria, China, Czech Republic, France, Germany, India, Italy, Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, UK, USA etc,” he added. Dr Khurshid Nizam, the CEO of Ecommerce Gateway Pakistan, said that this textile machinery fair in Pakistan would increase productivity, resulting into better competitiveness.

“The exhibition is aimed at bringing Punjab’s potential of textile and garment machinery, accessories, raw material supplies, chemicals and allied services under one roof, as around 80 percent of textile industry is located in this province,” Nizam added.