FAISALABAD, April 1: All Pakistan Cotton Powerlooms Association (APCPA) has demanded the federal government to restrain the unlimited export of cotton and polyester yarn otherwise local textile and its ancillary industries would be closed down.

Talking to newsmen here on Thursday, APCPA chairman Rana Mohammad Ikhlaq and its vice-chairman Muhammad Akram Ghauri said that the government had failed to control the escalating prices of cotton and polyester yarn during last eight months.

They said that the trade and industrialist bodies approached the higher authorities for evolving some foolproof strategy to control the prices of yarn. But all efforts in this regard proved futile.

They claimed that due to increase in the prices of yarn and other raw material, the cost of production had reached beyond the comprehension of small industrialists owing to which thousands of powerlooms had been closed down and scores of daily wage earners had been rendered jobless.

They further claimed that during previous year of 2003, the export of yarn was 38 million kg monthly which now had been jumped to 57 million kg during the current year. The export of yarn in bulk has also hampered the business activities of local textile sector, they added.

They demanded Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali to take stock of the situation and direct the officials concerned for the immediate restriction on export of yarn to save the national textile and its affiliated sectors.