KARACHI, March 19: All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (Aptma) chairman Anjum Saleem on Wednesday urged the government to ensure level playing field for the textile industry to keep its exports competitive in the world market.

Addressing the newsmen at ‘meet the press’ programme held at Karachi Press Club, the Aptma chief said textile was the only industry that could compete in the world market provided the level playing field was ensured.

Somehow, he said the industry never got the level playing field, which damaged its competitiveness in the world market. Presently, he said the industry was being strangulated by high cost of polyester fibre and cheap imported fabrics.

Anjum Saleem said the local producers of polyester fibre had been given protection by the government up to 2008, under which they got 15 per cent tariff protection on raw material and 20 per cent on polyester fibre.

Because of high cost maintained by the local manufacturers of polyester fibre, he said, the textile industry could not enhance polyester consumption, which had been stagnating at 18 to 20 per cent for the last many years against the world standard of 50:50 with raw cotton consumption.

As a matter of fact, he said, Aptma never raised any demands or sought for relief but had been seeking level playing field to ensure the industry’s competitiveness in the world market.

Responding to a question, the Aptma chief said undoubtedly polyester fibre prices were directly linked with oil prices, but the problem was that the protection given to the local producers resulted in higher prices.

After raw material, he said, energy charges was the second highest component in the input cost of the textile industry, and unfortunately the country was currently more dependent on hydel energy which was costlier than thermal power.

He apprehended that in case of the US-led war on Iraq the freight as well as insurance charges may go up and even war risk surcharge may once again be imposed as was done soon after the 9/11 incident. All these developments could affect the country’s exports, he responded to a query. Another factor damaging the textile industry is the availability of cheap smuggled goods in the domestic market and dumping of large scale blended fabrics coming from China and Thailand.

He said during the last 18 months the textile industry had invested around $1.4 billion in its Balancing, Modernization and Replacement (BMR) and expansion programme. There is a constant increase in raw cotton consumption by the industry.

He said last year the industry consumed around 10.15 million bales, out of which 10.03 million bales were produced by the country and a balance of 1.2 million bales were imported.

He expressed the hope that this year the industry would be consuming even higher quantity of around 10.20 million bales, and it is likely that the consumption would surge up to 15 million bales by 2007.

Anjum Saleem did not agree with a view that textile industry had imported substantial amount of raw cotton last year and said that “we always prefer local cotton over imported cotton as the former is easier to procure”. He said under the present free trade policy for cotton no one could influence raw cotton prices.

Later, the Aptma chief handed over a cheque of Rs75,000 to the KPC president towards a contribution from his association.

PSF PRODUCERS: Meanwhile, local producers of polyester staple fibre in a press statement has said that continued tension in the Middle East and its impact on the prices of crude oil has seriously affected local textile industry. Domestic textile industry is presently faced with increasing raw material prices and fixed drawback rates which eroded its competitive advantage in the world market.