SIALKOT, June 8: Punjab Minister for Industries Ajmal Cheema has announced that a training institution and a textile laboratory would be established in the city under the supervision of TEVTA for providing skilled labour to Sialkot’s value-added garments industry.

The announcement was made by him at the ground-breaking for Pakistan Ready-made Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association’s (PRGMEA) new office-building here.

Mr Cheema said that there was a great scope for growth in Sialkot’s value-added garments industry. The export of value-added garments could yield Rs12 billion rather than the Rs8 billion it was generating currently, he maintained.

He said there was a great scope for skilled women labourers in the garments industry.

He urged the garments exporters to prepare for the WTO challenges by increasing the quality of exports and changing the old trade strategies.

Mr Cheema announced that a one-window operation would be introduced for collection of taxes in Punjab in the next two months, as it had already been approved by Punjab Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi.

He said that the government would provide the latest technology and arrange technical assistance from Korea and China for boosting Sialkot’s value-added garments and leather industry.

Earlier, Sialkot Tehsil Nazim Akmal Cheema donated Rs200,000 to the PRGMEA and exempted the new PRGMEA building from commercialization fee amounting to Rs2.5 million.

PRGMEA central chairman Pervaiz Hanif, PRGMEA (North Zone) chairman Col Khubaib Ahmad Khan, Sialkot Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) president Babar Iqbal, vice-president Malik Ashraf and Surgical Instruments Manufacturers & Exporters Association (SIMA) chairman Bilal Hyder Agha were also present on the occasion.