KARACHI, Jan 1: The Aptma chairman, Nadeem Maqbool, has protested the “formation of cartel by local polyester staple fibre industry, thereby fleecing the textile industry.”

In a statement issued to the press on Tuesday, he said that the local polyester manufacturers were living under an umbrella of protection as the government continued to maintain a high incidence of customs and regulatory duty on import of polyester staple fibre by textile industry.

On the other hand, he said, the duty drawback, intended to offset the impact of this duty regime, had been reduced thus placing further burden on the industry’s competitiveness.

Nadeem Maqbool said the domestic polyester fibre industry had been enjoying this protection since inception and the cost of this is being paid by textile industry.

In spite of the fact that the international polyester prices are depicting a downward trend, the PSF manufacturers, he said, continued to charge higher prices from the textile industry with the result the country is continuously losing market share to its competitors’ which is clearly reflected by the decline in polyester/cotton yarn export figures.

He said polyester fibre was available to the competitors at 62 cents per kg whereas the local textile industry was paying over 80 cents per kg. “There is no justification for this exorbitant difference in pricing and Aptma urges the government to take immediate stock of the situation and restore local industry’s competitiveness,” he added.

Citing an example, he said, the landed cost of imported PSF with duty at 20 per cent and regulatory duty at 5 per cent worked out to be approximately Rs48 per kg whereas the domestic price presently stands at Rs55 per kg.

The Aptma chairman argued that there was no justification for such a huge difference in both the prices.

Nadeem Maqbool further said that textile industry could not compete in such environment as the industry was already over burdened with high input cost, and “is faced with increasingly hostile world in which we are losing orders because of the world recession and the Sept 11 incident.