KARACHI, May 29: Leaders of the city’s industrial associations have claimed that none of the textile mills (spinning mills) have closed down in Karachi in the last two years.
All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (Aptma) had reported closure of 116 textile mills in the country last week but did not mention city-wise details of these mills. Industry people, however, are of the view that these units might have been shut down in Punjab but not in Karachi. They said that closure of textile mills by Aptma mainly relates to spinning mills.
They said that the closure of units had been witnessed mainly in hosiery and garments, knitwear, etc., in the last few years including Karachi.
“Korangi and Landhi have 20-25 textile spinning mills and they are still in operation,” chairman Korangi Association of Trade and Industry (KATI), Masood Naqi told Dawn on Tuesday.
He said that the number of industrial units located in Korangi industrial area had fallen to 3,500 from 4,200 two years back owing to shutting down of many garment and hosiery industries (small to medium sized). But no textile spinning mills had been closed so far.
In the last two years, the industrial area had also seen shifting of industries to Punjab and some newly-established export processing zones mainly in garment, engineering and leather sectors.
“I think 100-150 industries of garments and hosiery have been closed down in Korangi alone in the last two years,” Masood said.
However, he said that despite the closure of many industries in the area new industrialists were becoming members of the KATI. “Our members have exceeded 700-mark as compared to 300 members three years back,” he added.
Chairman Site Association of Industry Imran Shaukat said that the area had seen closure of only one or two spinning mills in the last few years.
However, he said that the area had not seen any flight of capital abroad or shifting of industries to Punjab and other parts of the country in the last two to three years.
Chairman F.B. Area Association of Trade and Industry (FBATI) Masroor Ahmed Alvi said that the area had only two leading spinning mills and they had been in operation for decades.
He was of the view that Aptma was perhaps presenting the case of Punjab.
He said only garment, hosiery and knitwear units had faced closure while all the units of various sectors had been running smoothly.
He ruled the possibility of flight of capital to Punjab from the F.B. Area. However, he said that no new unit had been set up in the last few years.
Chairman North Karachi Association of Trade and Industry (NKATI) Faraz Mirza said that the area had no spinning mills out of over 2,000 units of various categories.
He said only few units of garment, woven, knitwear and hosiery mills had closed down in the last one year. However, he said there was hardly any new unit has come up in the area in the last one year.
The export of cotton yarn had registered an increase of 3.4 per cent during July-March 2006-2007 to $1.036 billion (495,171 tons) as compared to $1.001 billion (488,882 tons) in the same period of 2005-2006, thus showing that spinning mills have been maintaining their production.
The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) had also reported on May 10 that the textile sector had received a record Rs328 billion subsidised loans in the last 10 months. The heavy consumption of loans by the textile sector reflected that it was working with full capacity.
