ISLAMABAD, May 2: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has emphasised the need for comprehensive skills training of the workers to increase productivity of the knitwear sector and boost exports.

Chairing a meeting to review the performance of knitwear industry, he called for reviewing the entire textile chain - from production to marketing - to get unit price up to leverage the true export potential of the country in the knitwear sector.

An official announcement issued here said ministers for textile and commerce, adviser to the prime minister on finance and governor State Bank were also present at the meeting.

Mr Aziz said textile was the key industry and core business of the country. Pakistan has a competitive advantage, which should be leveraged to increase production and exports.

He said R&D support to various sectors of the textile industry helped to increase the viability and productivity of the knitwear industry.

The government is setting up garment cities in Karachi, Lahore and Faisalabad and a textile city in Karachi is also being planned by the government to provide better facilities and necessary infrastructure to the textile sector.

These cities, he said, will promote export of value-added garments and help the sector to grow and modernise itself.

Textile industry secretary informed the meeting there are about 700 units with 21,000 knitting machines in the country producing 350 million pieces of knitwear. The sector is 90 per cent export oriented, he added.

Identifying the challenges he said Pakistani knitwear industry is making efforts to export high value-added products to the world in order to align its export performance with regional competitors.