BISINISS WORLD NEWS

KARACHI: The All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) is observing strike today along with around 350 yarn manufacturing factories all over Pakistan to protest against a government move, which slashed their export quota to 35 million kgs of yarn a month from 50 million kg.

Federal Textile Minister Rana Farooq said all the issues would be amicably resolved through negotiations. The most of the textile units in the country are closed today on call by the Aptma.

The textile ministry, which is being accused by representatives of yarn manufacturers of favouring the value-added textile sector, has offered talks, but vowed not to be blackmailed by any interest group.

The APTMA, which speaks for yarn manufacturers, estimates a loss of $15 million to the national economy because of the one-day closure of spinning mills.

“We have boycotted the textile ministry,” Anwar Ahmed Tata, APTMA Chairman, said on Wednesday. “They are taking biased decisions.”

Tata said that APTMA had also challenged the government’s decision in the high courts of Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi.

Textile Minister Rana Mohammed Farooq Saeed Khan told Geo News that the government has always accepted all Aptma’s demands and whenever, spinning sector faced troubles, the government was there to help it out.

He added that the yarn export has affected to a great extent the textile’s value-added sector which provides 80 to 90 lakhs jobs and also its exports dwindled over a period of time.

Earlier on Tuesday, Saeed Khan accused yarn manufacturers of trying to blackmail the government.

Rana Farooq said Aptma has been asked to provide yarn to the local market, as the value-added sector is prepared to buy it at any price.

Mirza Ikhtiar Baig, Federal Adviser to the Ministry of Textile, said the government considered all sectors important and its decision was not biased. The yarn export quota was reduced because non-cotton yarn was not included in the 50 million kg quota, he said.

The textile ministry says during the last two years around 520 million kg yarn were exported each year, but this fiscal year it already crossed 614 million kg.

However, Tata said there was no economic sense of this decision. “They (the government) accuse APTMA of blackmailing, but they are blackmailing us.”

Tata claimed that the textile minister was favouring some value-added sector businessmen from Faisalabad. “There is no doubt that the federal minister has personal interest in this decision. There is no example in the world, where quota has been imposed on the manufacturing sector.”

“The government cannot cap yarn exports under the WTO regime. This is a personal decision of the minister, not even a political decision.”

The spinning sector and the value-added sector have been at the loggerheads for the past several months over the issue of yarn export and its prices.

The value-added sector says due to an increase in yarn exports and prices, they were unable to meet spring orders this year as the cost of their products was higher than their rivals’ in the international market.

Jawed Bilwani, Chairman of the Pakistan Apparel Forum and Chief Coordinator of all value-added textile associations, said the value-added yarn was not put under any capping. Capping was on coarse count only, as spinners broke all records of cotton yarn export. APTMA talks about free market-mechanism, “Free market is not stupidity when they sell at low prices and ask us to import at higher rates,” Bilwani said.