SIALKOT: Experts from the United Kingdom have expressed the need for early upgradation of the city’s century-old surgical goods manufacturing industry.

Addressing a gathering of manufacturers and exporters at Surgical Instruments Manufacturers Association of Pakistan (SIMAP) on Thursday, these experts also ensured all-out efforts to help upgrade the industry through meeting global trade challenges besides taking notice of child labour practice persistent in the surgical goods industry.

Ms Cindy Berman and Ben Rutledge of Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI), a UK-based organisation, also discussed matters of mutual interest such as corporate social responsibility, child labour and the problems related with it.

Ms Berman said that ETI was conducting a study for the commencement of “Programme to Tackle Child labour in Sialkot — Pakistan’s Surgical Industry” under the supervision of Trade Development Authority of Pakistan in collaboration with Sialkot Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) and SIMAP.

She revealed that ETI was a collaborative effort involving Swedish, Norwegian, German and UK public bodies and European buyers to conduct a due diligence of child labour and value chain analysis of Sialkot’s surgical industry and surgical instruments.

She said that steps have already been taken to tackle the problem of child labor in Sialkot’s sports goods sector, however, the problem persists in surgical industry especially amongst the small-scale vendors.

Muhammad Jehangir Bajwa of SIMAP briefed the experts on initiatives taken by manufacturers to eliminate child labour while urging the government to conduct training programmes and workshops to prepare and provide much-needed skilled labour to the surgical industry.

He said that the industry has potential to double the surgical exports within few years if it is supported by the government.

He urged exporters and manufacturers to focus on diversification in manufacturing which could help boost exports.

He said that Sialkot’s surgical industry produces over 10,000 different medical instruments covering all sections of surgical, dental, veterinary and beauty related requirements.

Published in Dawn, August 3rd, 2018