KARACHI, Aug 23: The Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturers Association (PHMA) has disclosed that some of its members are exporting a large number of European brands knitting machines to China after failing to face the onslaught of frequently rising cost of inputs.

The association has brought it to the notice of ministries of commerce and textile industry in a letter addressed to their secretaries. The PHMA pointed out that it had learnt that around 150 world renowned brands of knitting machines from Germany had been exported to China after their owners failed to run their units owing to rapidly rising cost of utilities -- gas, electricity, water, etc.

The association said further that Chinese importers were welcoming such imports, as these high-tech machines were not available in China owing to special metallurgy involved. It said the Chinese were further modifying these machines electronically.

The PHAM feared the country would suffer huge losses by such move and warned that many more such cases would crop up with each passing day, as more knitting units having a large number of machinery, including circular knitting and stitching machines, dyeing and processing machines, would be closed down.

All these would seek the way to junk yards.The association pointed out that developed countries such as the UK, Germany, Japan and Korea initially stabilised their economies through textile industry and then moved to the engineering sector. “But it seems that we are in haste and in the process are going to destabilise our economy,” the association feels.

Without giving required strength and place to the value-added textile industry, the real and sustainable economic growth was not possible as was evident from the experience of those developed nations, it pointed out.

The PHMA said the facts narrated were a sort of wake-up call to the authorities concerned and a serious attempt was needed to save this value-added, labour-intensive and export-oriented industry from complete ruin and disaster.