Staff Reporter Lahore
All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) Patron-in-Chief Gohar Ejaz has announced that the textile industry is going to invest $5 billion by adding 100 new textile plants which will provide 500,000 new jobs and increase textile exports.
Addressing the annual general meeting of the association at APTMA House, Gohar hoped to achieve the current year’s textile export target of $21 billion.
He mentioned that exports of the value-added sector have shown remarkable growth during FY 2020-21, registering 32 percent in the towel, 19 percent in garments, 37 percent in knitwear, and 29 percent in bed wear exports.
He added that textile exports increased by 23 percent in last FY, while registering 29 percent growth in the first 2 months of the current fiscal year. In August 2021, textile exports have registered a growth of 45 percent over the same period last year.
He assured that APTMA is committed to give international prices to the cotton farmers, and this year cotton farmers would get Rs600 billion instead of Rs200 billion paid to them last year.
He said that cotton yarn is sufficiently available in the country for consumption in the value-added sector for export purposes which is evident from the fact that cotton yarn export has declined by 25 percent in quantitative terms from 0.522 million tonnes in 2018 to 0.390 million tonnes during 2021 and 26 percent in value terms.
Gohar said that domestic production of cotton yarn was about 3.5 million tons and 90 percent of this production was used for value-added sector while only 10 percent was being exported.
Earlier, Mohammad Raza Baqir, Secretary General and Executive Director APTMA, announced the results on behalf of election commission.
According to the APTMA election results, Abdul Rahim Nasir has been elected as Central Chairman APTMA along with Muhammad Jameel Qasim as Senior Vice Chairman and Atta Shafi Tanvir Sheikh as Vice Chairman.
While in zonal elections, Hamid Zaman has been elected as Chairman, Kamran Arshad as Senior Vice Chairman, Muhammad Anees Khawaja as Vice Chairman and Asad Shafi as Treasurer of the Northern Zone.
On this occasion, Abdul Rahim Nasir thanked Gohar Ejaz and all members of APTMA for their unflinching support.
He vowed to put his best for the restoration, viability and competitiveness of the industry and increasing textile exports.
Outgoing chairman of APTMA Adil Bashir highlighted the efforts made during 2020-21.
He said that it was a challenging year both for the government and the industry due to the successive waves of a global pandemic of Covid-19 which plunged the global economy and created repeated uncertainties in the supply chains and consumer demands.
He said that waiver from lockdown granted to export-oriented industry enabled the textile industry to operate at its full capacity to regain export markets at a fast pace.
He thanked Prime Minister Imran Khan, Advisor to Prime Minister on Commerce Abdul Razzak Dawood and the whole government machinery for their support to revive the industry and uplift exports.
