LAHORE: Members of the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (Aptma) launched on Saturday a countrywide protest campaign to restore the viability of the textile industry.

Protesters in Lahore, Karachi, Multan, Faisalabad and Peshawar offices of Aptma chanted slogans against the hostile attitude of policymakers. They said the anti-industry, anti-investment and anti-exports behaviour was detrimental to the viability and sustainability of the textile industry.

Protesters carried placards against Finance Minister Ishaq Dar. They also burnt Indian yarn and fabric outside the Aptma Lahore office.

Earlier, Aptma’s Central Chairman Aamir Fayyaz chaired a general body meeting of the zonal offices through video link. He spoke to journalists to express his dismay at the delay in the implementation of Rs180 billion relief package and non-allocation of funds in the latest budget.

“Mere announcements will not help increase exports unless words are translated into action,” he said.

Mr Fayyaz said the country’s trade deficit soared to $32bn with imports increasing to $52bn against less than $20bn exports in the outgoing fiscal year.

“Remittances have fallen below $19bn and the government has resorted to borrowing additional foreign and domestic funds,” he said.

He warned of a further decline in exports and investment in case the government kept borrowing funds instead of following an export-led growth strategy.

“The government should rely upon the export sector rather than pursuing the IMF for additional debt,” he said.

He also sought an immediate release of pending sales tax and other refunds no matter refund payment orders have been issued or not.

“Besides an export-oriented growth strategy and release of refunds, the government should remove surcharges from electricity tariff,” he said, adding that the government should also supply both system gas and LNG at Rs400 per million British thermal units without levies and gas infrastructure development cess.

He announced that a joint textile industry convention would be held in Islamabad in July to start a countrywide movement if the government failed to meet the demands of the export sector.

The Aptma leader appealed to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to steer the industry out of the current crisis to save millions of jobs.

Aptma is the main trade association of textile spinning, weaving and composite mills and represents 396 textile mills. As many as 315 companies belong to the spinning segment while weaving and composite units are 44 and 37, respectively.

Published in Dawn, June 18th, 2017