KARACHI, April 22: Minister for Industries and Production Liaqat Ali Jatoi on Thursday said that a garment city would be set up alongside textile city for which ground-breaking ceremony would be held next month.

Addressing Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturers Association (PHMA) on his visit to PHMA House, the minister said that two or three garment cities would be established alongside Pakistan Textile City being set up near Port Qasim.

He informed that the government would be spending around Rs9 billion in infrastructure development of textile city for which ground-breaking ceremony would be held next month. However, he clarified that the Pakistan Textile City would be run by private sector and the government would work only as a facilitator to the project.

Referring to a point raised by chairman PHMA (SB Zone) Imran Ali Sabir, the minister said that the government could give Export Processing Zone (EPB) status to entire export oriented industry to get the relief from social compliance. The minister agreed with the PHMA members that over 36 different agencies belonging to federal and provincial governments were creating problems by intimidating and harassing exporters and industry at large.

It was also pointed out that social compliance during quota-free regime could be the biggest tool in the hand of foreign buyers who could frequently use it to penalize exporting country.

The PHMA members demanded that to face this situation the government should immediately develop a system where all levies and tax paid towards different accounts be merged into one single tax.

The minister taking serious note of the situation said "time has come to take a decision about these agencies to ease off the situation for exporters." He also accepted the PHMA demand that their representative should be inducted in the Advisory Council established by the Ministry of Industries and Production for soliciting and feedback from the stakeholders of different industries.

The minister informed that 20 to 25 treatment plants are in the pipeline to meet the WTO conditions of environment and also stressed upon having training institutions for imparting skills among industrial workers which is a basic step towards value- addition along with high tech and modern machinery.

The ECC, he said, has already approved the suggestion given by his ministry for setting up Registration Centre for providing all facilities including registration for new investors and banking, customs, chamber and Board of Investment (BoI) offices under one-roof.

The minister advised the PHMA members to take care of their workforce by providing them proper health, education and other facilities as social obligations are part of their activity.

Mr Jatoi asked PHMA to approach the Textile Commissioner Muhammad Idrees for resolving their problems. Since the offices of Textile Commissioner are in Karachi they can easily approach him. He further said that foreign investors were also showing keen interest in the textile city and so far over 35 applications had been received from local investors for setting up their units in the city.