Daily Times

The Pakistan Business Forum (PBF) has urged the government to reduce the mark-up rate as well as tariff of electricity and gas for the textile industry, enabling Pakistani products to receive a due share in the global market. Talking to the media persons here on Sunday, PBF President Mian M Usman Zulfiqar said that he had also written a letter to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in this regard and informed him that how the industrial production was decreasing mainly because of high input cost and mark-up rate. He said that non-issuance of letters of credit (LCs) for the import of essential raw materials was hindering the textile production. The PBF president also expressed concern over textile industry’s earnings and claimed that 50 per cent of the textile production units had been closed down which would result in drop in country’s textile exports substantially this year. He urged the government to take notice of the textile industry’s deteriorating situation, adding that today, Pakistani mercantile could not compete with other countries in the international markets. The government must also revive the power subsidy for the export-oriented industries, he added. He said that local cotton yield remained less than five million bales this season because of last year’s floods and heavy rains; therefore, the textile industry would have to import at least one million cotton bales to meet its production requirement and the banks should be allowed to open LCs for import of required quantity of cotton. Similarly, the import consignments were stuck at ports, which needed to be released on a priority basis.