March 20, 2019: Adviser to Prime Minister on Commerce, Textile, Industry & Production and Investment Abdul Razak Dawood said on Wednesday the government has finalized policy interventions for up-gradation and value addition in textile sector with enhanced market access. 

Addressing the 5th international conference on 'value addition and innovation in textile' and 'NTU-DICE Textile Innovation event' organized by National Textile University (NTU) Faisalabad, he said that now it is the time for business community to exploit and contribute its role in capturing the global textile market. 

He said that no doubt textile is the main economic strength of Pakistan, but the entire textile chain had inherent problems of technology up-gradation. He said that starting from ginning up to textile garments, the entire chain was working with obsolete technology.

He said the government has introduced new reforms through policy interventions. “We are working on a progressive industrial policy which will be compatible with the emerging challenges and it will be based on diversification, expansion and deepening from top to bottom so that it could provide sustainable results,” he added.

He also underlined the importance of SME sector and said that a separate policy would be framed to encourage and promote this segment.

Regarding tariff policy and duty structure, the advisor said the government has made progress on it while more steps would be taken in the coming budget.

Razak Dawood also mentioned the issues of cost of doing business and ease of doing business and said, “Our ranking has improved from 147 to 136 as regards of ease of doing business while we are trying to further improve it in addition to bring Pakistan at the ranking of 100th country.”

He said that some tariffs have already been trimmed by the government while as policy measures we have decided to further reduce the tariff especially on the import of raw material.

Commenting on the ginning sector, the advisor said, “Our ginning factories are operating with obsolete machines manufactured in 1950. There are total 1000 units in Pakistan whereas Australia has only 28 ginning factories.”

He said, “Our ginners are generally involved in trading of cotton and we must setup new bigger and state-of-the-art ginning units to compete in the global market.”

He said the government would also facilitate the ginners with administrative policy and financial supports.

Regarding spinning, Abdul Razak Dawood said that on an average, our spinning units have 39,000 spindles, adding the government would also provide them necessary incentives and funding to improve their efficiency while installing latest machinery.

He also explained in details the efforts made by the present government to provide market access to the Pakistani exportable surplus.

Regarding Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Indonesia, he said that it was not in favour of Pakistan. “We renegotiated it with Indonesia which has allowed duty free export of 20 new items from Pakistan,” he added.

He said, “We are also negotiating with China for trade agreement.” Federal Secretary Commerce Muhammad Younus Dagha is vigorously engaged with his Chinese counter partner and in new FTA was expected to be signed in April this year, he observed.

Continuing, Abdul Razak Dawood said that national economy was passing through a critical stage, but we must have to take difficult and bold decisions to revive the national economy.

He was optimistic that Pakistan would get maximum foreign direct investment (FDI). “We are concentrating on establishment of 7 special economic zones across the country,” he said.

He said that Bangladesh is offering tax holiday for three years whereas we are offering tax holiday of 10 years, hence, we are expecting maximum FDI in the coming years.

Earlier, Rector NTU Prof Dr Tanveer Hussain briefed the chief guest about the progress of the university and future development plans.

The MoUs were also signed between NTU and various industries for mutual cooperation for strengthening industry-academia linkages.

Chairman All Pakistan Textile Processing Mills Association (APTPMA) Engineer Rizwan Ashraf and Dr Khurram Tariq also spoke on the occasion, whereas Federal Secretary for Textile Division Syed Iftikhar Hussain Babar, former Textile Minister Chaudhary Mushtaq Ali Cheema and Mian Muhammad Lateef were also present.

Later, NTU souvenir was presented to PM Adviser Abdul Razak Dawood.

 (APP)

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