February 22, 2006	Wednesday	Muharram 23, 1427

ISLAMABAD, Feb 21: Pakistan’s textile products have become less competitive in the international market during the current fiscal year owing to tough competition from India, China and Bangladesh.

A senior official told Dawn that the members of the textile board, who met here on Tuesday under the chairmanship of Textile Industry Minister Mushtaq Ali Cheema, had proposed a range of measures for making textile products more competitive.

The meeting was informed that Pakistani textile products had become less competitive mainly because of high cost of products due to an increase in oil and gas prices in the international market and a surge in interest rate.

According to the official, governments in India, China and Bangladesh were providing heavy subsidies to their textile producers as against no subsidy in Pakistan.

The meeting proposed to immediately revise downward the rate of interest for textile manufacturers so that they could be able to run their businesses. It was also proposed to extend a six per cent subsidy on research and development to the knitwear industry for another year. The subsidy will expire on June 30 this year.

The official said that the growth in knitwear export had become stagnant following the abolition of quota regime. The annual export of knitwear stood at over $1 billion.

According to the official, Bangladesh and Sri Lank — members of the least developed countries — were enjoying a zero-duty market access to the European Union, Canada, Australia and many other developed countries due to which exports of Pakistani textile products to these countries were on decline.

The official said that the board also proposed to scale down the tariff on machinery and raw materials to zero per cent from the current five per cent. In India, China and Bangladesh, there was no duty on raw materials and machinery.

However, the meeting was informed that exports of bedwear to the US had increased during the current fiscal year. It was also decided that initially 30 textile mills would provide space for training to the existing employees for improving their efficiency which would ultimately reduce the cost of production.

The government would assist the cost of training to produce trained manpower for the textile industry, added the official.