KARACHI, July 16: The apparel industry has warned the policy-makers of the adverse impact on domestic textile industry of the recently announced Indian government’s export package for its textile industry.

In a SOS to the commerce and textile ministries leading apparel trade bodies have cautioned that if a matching package in the forthcoming textile and trade policy is not made export of value-added textile products will be doomed and the entire industry would come to a grinding halt.

“We are not asking for any sort of relief or package but what we are trying to make our policy makers to understand that without a level -playing field our exports will not stay competitive in the world market,” asserted a leading textile exporter.

Indian commerce minister last week announced inter-alia an export package comprising of enhanced duty entitlement passbook (DEPB) rates by three per cent for nine sectors, including textile, rate of interest on pre and post-shipment credit has been reduced by two per cent and Export Credit Guarantee Corporation (ECGC) premium has been reduced by 10 per cent.

As a result of these measures, taken by the Indian government to neutralise the adverse impact of rising rupee on exports and achieve export growth at 12 per cent, Pakistan’s textile products will become costlier by almost 20 to 30 per cent, textile leaders exhorted.

The biggest problem, they argued, is that Pakistan being largely dependant on cotton economy is prone to lose more if its textile exports are hurt by any degree. Unlike India, whose economy is broad-based and its exports are of diverse nature, Pakistan is dependant on textile exports up to 65 per cent.

Similarly, they said that much of the employment was provided by the textile sector, which further generated economic activity in other sectors such as packing, transport and in service sectors, banking, insurance, clearing and forwarding sector.

Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturers Association (PHMA) Chairman Naqi Bari said that the textile sector was already faced with immense problems due to highest utility rates along with rising cost of raw material, transport, and labour and frequent power breakdowns.

“With the announcement of textile package by Indian government our chances of holding our world market share has further diminished,” he felt.

Another business leader Jawed Bilwani said that the policy makers should not give us any favour except that they should ensure a level-playing field as China has also announced a number of export packages to promote its textile exports.

He urged the decision-makers to study the policies and incentives given by other countries of the region and only then should decide if textile sector really needed any such support to maintain its world market share, which is already on decline.

Pakistan Bedwear Exporters Association (PBEA) chairman Shabir Ahmed said that now it had become inevitable for the government to give some serious thought to what the textile industry had been saying for the last several months.

If we fail to grasp the situation at this juncture when India, which has a diverse nature of exports but was still giving due importance to textile exports, then none would be blamed except the policy makers of Islamabad.

Muzammil Husain, the chairman Towel Manufacturers’ Association (TMA) said that if no matching incentives were given to the textile industry as given by India recently it would prompt foreign buyers to go for Indian products and our value-added apparel and home textile sector will face closure, which would cause mass unemployment.