LAHORE, May 21: Textile millers expect that the volume of investment in different sectors of the industry, particularly in the value-added sector, will exceed $500 million by the year-end.

All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (Aptma-Punjab) chairman Anjum Salim told Dawn that the “banks had disbursed a sum of Rs29 billion during in 2001 to the industry”.

The entire exposure in the textile industry at the end of 2001 stood at Rs150.754 billion. The traditional sectors (spinning and weaving) has claimed an overwhelmingly share of Rs125.212 billion from the total exposure. However, the priority value-added areas (apparel, knitting and finishing) are “far behind the traditional areas with a total exposure of Rs25.542 billion.”

During the year 2001, more than half of the funds disbursed — Rs16.344 billion — went to spinning mills and Rs3.726 billion to weaving mills. On the other hand, only Rs2.70 billion and Rs2.283 billion have been claimed by polyester fibre and apparel sectors, respectively.

The total credit disbursed during 2001 was Rs5 billion greater than the target given in the Textile Vision 2005, slightly higher than the “low road” scenario envisioned in the vision.

While the textile vision had set a target of fresh investments of Rs12.3 billion for the value-added sectors including apparels, knitting, finishing, etc., the actual spending remained as low as Rs5.583 billion at the end of the year.

In the same way, the investments in the traditional sectors as spinning, weaving and polyester fibre production were expected to be Rs11.800 billion. However, the actual spending of Rs23.680 far exceeded the target.

Anjum Salim is hopeful that more money will go into the value- added sectors this year as several new units are in the pipeline. “Some have already gone into production. The remaining are likely to be operational in the coming few months,” he added.