ISLAMABAD, Jan 31: Minister for Textile Industry Mushtaq Ali Cheema said on Wednesday that his ministry would establish five more cotton fibre testing laboratories to enhance quality of cotton, which would result in value-addition of textile products.

These laboratories will be established at Bhawalpur, Sahiwal, Dera Ghazi Khan, Faisalabad and Hyderabad, in addition of existing laboratories to facilitate growers and ginners in their region and to enhance the quality of cotton.

Four such laboratories have already been established and are operating in Multan, Vehari, Rahim Yar Khan and Karachi under phase-I of the scheme, while one more laboratory is being installed at Sanghar, the minister said.

An official announcement said that planning and development division has approved this scheme at a meeting of the Central Development Working Party held here on Jan 27 last.

This scheme was sponsored by the ministry of textile industry and the total cost of this project is Rs68.862 million while the executing agency of the project will be the Pakistan Cotton Standards Institute, the minister added.

The laboratories will be equipped with state of the art high volume instruments (HVIs) which give grade, staple length, micronaire, strength and other fiber properties of the cotton as well as accurate prediction of processing performance and product quality using empirical mill specific regression equations.

Mr Cheema said the work on installation of these laboratories will be completed before the next cotton season, 2007-08 for which funds would be provided by the government during the current financial year as supplementary grant.

These laboratories will be a great step towards instrumental grading and classification of cotton which is the norm in all developed cotton growing countries, the minister added.