KARACHI: With the onset of winter the oldest Landa Bazaar (used garments’ market) is buzzing with sounds of buyers and sellers as a large number of city’s middle class dwellers thronged the bazaar to buy clothes before the cold waves hit the city. The bazaar is not what it used to be for the poorest of the poor as they now are unable to pay the prices being demanded by shopkeepers. “Last year I bought a shirt for Rs 30 but now they are demanding Rs 300 for the same shirt,” a retired government employee complained while moving from shop to shop in search of something affordable. Prices have jumped by almost 300 percent, says Hakeem Shah, chairman of All City Tajir Ittehad, blaming the government for increasing duties and imposing taxes. “Two years ago, we were paying Rs 160,000 per container but the duty has increased to Rs 360,000,” he noted. Earlier people would go to Landa Bazaar in search of quality products including branded items but now they say that mostly C and D quality material is being imported as most of the quality products are exported to South Africa, Thailand, Afghanistan, and Iran. “Selected items such as branded jeans, jackets, shirts and ladies wears are in great demand in such countries”, Hakeem Shah informed. Major items such as sweaters, jackets which are in demand in northern area of the country are dispatched to Lahore which supplies these products to other markets. Hakeem shah says that only 50 percent used clothes are consumed in Pakistan as rest of the clothes are exported to other countries including 30 percent to Afghanistan and 20 percent to South Africa, Thailand, and Iran. Replying to a question about the prices of sweaters, blankets, leather jackets, Hakeem Shah said that these products were available for Rs 200-500, Rs 1500-2000, Rs 500-600 and Rs 2,000, respectively. The retailers purchase clothes from importers in kilogrammes but they sell in units after selected items according to the quality and brand. The import figures supplied by the importers show drastic decline to the tune of $56 million up to October 2017 from $155 million imported during the last year, January-December 2016. “Second hand clothes are imported from USA, UK, Germany, Belgium, Far East, Japan and Korea,” Usman Farooqui, General Secretary of Pakistan Secondhand Cloth Merchants Association informed. Importers and sellers of used clothes complained that the low quality products are coming to Pakistan according to them “Gora Sahibs” are also suffering from the global economic slow down and instead of discarding clothes they prefer to continue consumption. China is also marketing cheap products in Pakistan which is directly hitting their competitors but they insist that their business will not be hurt in the presence of low quality Chinese products. Published in Daily Times, November 21st 2017.