Discontinuation of gas supply to industrial sector decried

MULTAN: The Multan Chamber of Commerce and Industry has expressed serious concerns over discontinuation of gas supply to the industrial sector particularly to textile sector and demanded the government exempt the textile industry from gas loadshedding.

The MCCI has urged the Prime Minister Imran Khan to intervene immediately to ensure supply of electricity and gas to textile mills and warned that if the sector was pushed against the wall and their genuine concerns were not addressed, workers and their families would take to the streets.

Talking to reporters on Monday, MCCI president Khawaja Muhammad Hussein said the supply of gas to the important industrial sector has been cut off by the government due to which it is feared that in the coming days it would be very difficult to process the local, foreign and Christmas related orders of billions of rupees.

He said the government's goal of increasing exports to Rs 30 billion will also be jeopardized. To a question, he said the supply of gas would be cut off and textile sector is going to suffer huge losses and thousands of workers would lose jobs. He maintained that tThe industrial sector in the country was already facing numerous challenges.

The MCCI president said in such a situation, gas load-shedding will create new problems. After the closure of 400 textile mills in Punjab, a crisis situation has arisen in the industry of which the government should take immediate notice of and consult with the stakeholders. He said 70 per cent of the country's textile mills are in Punjab.

The textile industry will not be able to meet its export target due to non-availability of gas. The export sector has suffered huge losses during the current financial year. Khawaja Muhammad Hussein said textile sector is feared more than $ 5 billion lower exports in the wake of disruption of gas supply.

The entire textile sector was expecting over $ 21 billion export of textile goods during the current fiscal year but gas shut down makes the export target an eyewash. The export is expected to remain less than $ 18 billion, he said.

He said the energy minister had assured uninterrupted gas supply to the textile sector. He said the country’s 70 per cent textile industry is based in Punjab and the disconnection of gas will bring 80pc of the industry almost to a standstill. If remedial measures are not taken a crisis like situation would erupt in the province.

The Power Distribution Companies are not in a position to supply additional power to the mills. The textile mills in Punjab were unable to operate at the moment, he said. He said if manufacturing orders were not processed on time the country would suffer big economic loss and foreign buyers would avoid making business deals with Pakistan.

Responding to another query, he said the country has the availability of a huge quantity of value-added textile export orders with the exporters but the uncertain situation causes a massive decline in the growing exports of the textile sector.

He said the export sector is already facing a critical shortage of cotton yarn in the domestic market due to reduction in the production of cotton bales and export of cotton yarn which is the basic raw material of textile. Now the unavailability of gas would prove a last nail in textile goods coffin’s being the basic fuel for manufacturing and processing of textile goods, he added.