Textile industry consists of numerous sub-sectors which are integrated into a chain right from the initial stage of cotton-seed and other basic raw materials to the final stage of finished goods.

Each one of component has its own characteristics based on inputs, technology and human resource requirements. Flaws in any one component will affect results of the rest of the chain. Therefore, better the integration, higher are the yields and vice-versa.

In Pakistan, the situation is even otherwise unique in this sector as is evident from the fact that GDP consists of $74.0 billion, total manufacturing constitute 23 per cent of GDP ($17.02 billion) and textile manufacturing share is 9 per cent ($6.66 billion). The export of textile consists of $7.33 billion. (Source: Pakistan Survey, 2002-03).

Although the growth in the sector is very promising, but imbalanced in favour of low value-added products. However, stagnation is there in terms of Pakistan's share in the world exports and the industry is facing different challenges to retain its share.

Narrow geographical spread of export commodities, focus on low value-added yarns and fabrics rather than high value-added garments and made-ups, domestic non-availability of contamination-free cotton, rather inactive man-made fibres and lack of skilled manpower are some of the challenges to name.

The post-WTO era has tremendous pressure on Pakistan's textile industry. Stress to update industry through accelerating technical reforms and strategic re-organization of textile enterprise is required.

On the positive side, there is a tremendous increase in import of textile machinery in 2001-02 that resulted in breaching $10 billion bench-mark last year. The industry is opportunistic so far as marketing is concerned.

Though its capital market utilization is only 28 per cent, its investment touched $4 billion in 2002-03. This surge can be partially attributed to modernization that it required in post-WTO era and partially to ease market accessibility.

However at the state level, there have been no coherent steps for worthwhile assistance to the industry. On the contrary, in the existing model, each sector is treated as separate entity.

There are host of divisions which are dealing with the sectors in different capacities without any coordination. Resultantly, we had marginal growth and that too because of the foreign policy.

On the contrary, other cotton growing-countries have witnessed robust growth, mainly due to reorganization and modernization of the industry. Even non-cotton countries such as Sir Lanka and Mexico are doing well through seller-buyer alliance.

For analysis purpose, few models have been studied and it is found that these countries created exclusive organizations for the industry which are responsible for everything- from procurement of raw material to disposal of finished goods.

The Ministry of Jute in Bangladesh is responsible for overall development of the jute sector and its functions are; (1) Jute policy; (2) administration of Jute Ordinance; (3) internal and external marketing; (4) determination and control of prices, realising challenges for the availing opportunities, created.

An exclusive ministry of textiles in India has been assigned the following functions:

Textile policy and coordination; man-made fibre/ filament yarn industry; cotton textile industry; Jute industry; silk and silk textile industry; wool and woollen industry; export promotion; planning and economic analysis; integrated finance matters; information technology.

Similarly China in 2001, integrated 22 specialised industrial associations and 10 former service institutes into China National Textile Industry Council (CNTIC). Its focus is targeted at the following three priorities:

1) Industrial consulting department- for industrial restructuring, industrial standards and codes, technical up-grading and scientific research, in-service training, statistics for economic performance and compilation of the annual report of the industrial development.

(2) Marketing department- for sourcing and exploring the domestic and international markets, hosting important trade fairs and exhibitions both at home and abroad, and international market survey etc. (3) The Information department-for establishing the industries networking system, information consulting, e-commerce platforms, and ERP Projects for enterprises.

In the USA, the Office of Textile and Apparel (OTEXA) is only a delivery van for textiles. These reorganization paid dividends as despite rapid expansion in the world trade, China and India have registered tremendous growth. Even smaller country through blocks and alliances such as Mexico, have shown robust growth in international trade.

Pakistan's share: We may note that there has been marginal improvement but our share has been much less and in post-WTO era there would be more compelling conditions. We have limited resources and their better management is indispensable.

The quality of infrastructure will be an important determinant to compete in consumer driven economy. Better quality will increase the share of total exports driven by vertical specialization. Vertical specialization implies that the inputs embodied in the final product cross borders several times and such trade is very sensitive to any kinds of hurdles and delays within the country.

Time to market is important and increasingly so, particularly in the fashion-clothing sector. Therefore, countries close to the major markets are likely to be less affected by competition from India and China than has been anticipated in previous studies.

The countries that are most likely to lose market shares are those located far from the major markets and which have had either tariff or quota-free access to the United States and EU markets, or which have had non-binding quotas. These countries will undoubtedly face adjustment challenges.

Pakistan has no option other than the integration of textiles process that starts from producing high quality cotton crop and moves through all the intermediate stages of production to high quality garments and made-ups.

Pakistan has initiated the ministry of textile industry to provide the guide lines to compete in global textile trade. In the existing set-up, following organizations can easily be integrated in the ministry though their business processes are in dire need of reengineering.