May 10, 2008	Saturday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 4, 1429

KARACHI, May 9: All-Pakistan Textile Mills Association Chairman Iqbal Ibrahim has responded to a State Bank of Pakistan’s accusation that the textile sector has failed to perform satisfactorily in exports despite research and development (R and D) subsidy support and concession rated loan assistance during the past three years.

“The export of textile sector has increased from $8.56 billion in 2004-05 to $10.75 billion in 2006-07, showing a rise of 25.6 per cent,” the Aptma leader asserted in a statement on Friday.

He further drew a comparison of textile exports during July-March 2004-05 with the same period in 2007-08 which showed a growth of 30 per cent “even though the industry is facing manifold problems, such as massive load-shedding, including suspension of gas supply during winter in Punjab and the NWFP,” he said.

Textile exports fetched $7.76 billion during the first nine months of the current fiscal year as against $5.92 billion in the same period of last fiscal year.

“Foreign buyers are reluctant to come to Pakistan because of law and order situation,” he argued to contend that textile exporters’ marketing cost is up because of buyers’ preference to safe places to negotiate.

Mr Ibrahim made a specific reference to 25 to 30 per cent increase in export of those textile products that receive research and development subsidy support.

He attributed a drop of 3.14 per cent in textile exports during the first nine months of this fiscal year to same period of last fiscal year to a number of factors.

The main factor contributing to textile export slump, he said, was increase in cost of doing business and import of 25 per cent of cotton because of shortfall in crop production.

The Aptma chief disclosed that proceeds of many textile exporters to the US are stuck up because of slowdown of the economy.

Since January 2005, when duty-free concession on Pakistan’s textile export was withdrawn by the European Union, Pakistan’s exports are under tremendous pressure because of mounting cost of doing business in Pakistan.

Since then, the government slashed down duty drawbacks and interest rate of bank loans started going up.