ISLAMABAD, Jan 10: Pakistan is likely to buy second hand textile machinery worth $200 million from the United States instead of India.

Commerce minister Abdul Razak Dawood told a news conference here on Thursday that there were two opinions on the question of importing textile machinery. One group, he said, had suggested it should be imported from India or open it up from anywhere else while the other group opposed it on the ground that Pakistan should not allow low quality machinery import if it wanted world class textile exports.

He said that Federal Textile Board (FTB) was expected to meet by end of this month to take a final decision on the subject. He said that import of machinery from the United States was feasible as most of the textile industry was moving out to Mexico.

He, however, did not agree that import of machinery from the United States was part of some quid pro quo to market access to Pakistani textile exports there. “Their policies are market driven and wouldn’t do for that (provide market access for machinery),” said the minister.

The minister said that he had a meeting with US ambassador in Islamabad Vendy Chamberlin on Thursday and discussed market access to Pakistani exports, but there was nothing conclusive.

“We had good discussion but the talks are not conclusive and she did not say anything concrete,” he added.

Talking about increasing exports to Chinese market, the minister said that he was disappointed with the exports of polyester and rice during his two visits to China during the last two months.

Razak said that Pakistan’s export of 10 products to 10 countries constituted 70 per cent of its total exports and that is why the commerce ministry and Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) decided to diversify its exports.

He said that exports to mainland China were on the increase compared with Hong Kong which meant that middleman costs were reducing and exports were directly going to China instead of going through Hong Kong.

He said total exports to China and Hong Kong were in the region of around $900 million and immediate target was to cross $1 billion mark keeping in view that China’s total imports amounted to $240 billion.

He said that China has agreed to establish an exclusive industrial estate “Silk Park” in Pakistan for silk, yarn and cloth exports to Middle East, Africa and Arab countries.

He said that Pakistan has decided to increase visits of companies and officials to China to increase its share in the $240 billion export market in China.

He said that two high level Chinese delegation were coming to Pakistan in March and April to Silk Park garments. The board of investment (BOI) has been assigned to develop plans for Silk Park so that the two countries could have a strategic alliance for textile sector.

They would import grey cloth from Pakistan and visit textile industry in Faisalabad, which was now undergoing extensive restructuring through conversion from powerlooms to air-jet looms and automatic looms because powerlooms were no more economic and competitive.

The minister said that he was disappointed that Pakistani polyester was not competitive in Chinese market for the moment because Koreans have dropped their prices drastically in the recent months.

He said that Chinese were considering to make investments in fishing sector including deep sea fishing, fish processing plants and related activities and had started two projects in Lahore.

He said that Pakistan needed to improve its land-route exports to China because it was now concentrating on the development of Western provinces where Pakistan could benefit a lot.

He said that he did not get favourable response on export of rice to China because Chinese liked sticky rice while Pakistani produced other qualities of rice.