KARACHI, Sept 25: The Towel Manufacturers Association (TMA) has urged the State Bank to rescue exporters affected by sudden wrap up of the Long Term Financing Scheme (LTFS) in the latest trade policy.

The plea was made by TMA Chairman Syed Muzammil Hussain in a recent meeting with In-charge of LTFS at the SBP head office.

Talking to Dawn on Monday, the TMA chief said that many exporters opened Letters of Credit (LCs) for procuring machinery units under the LTFS before the announcement of the trade policy. However, when they were planning to import the rest of the components of the imported plants, the funding scheme was abandoned and draft of a new long-term financing scheme was issued, which is yet to be implemented.

He said that exporters were in a fix because they could not start production until the final finishing and packing unit of the plant was also imported for which presently no financing was being provided by the SBP.

He said the due to incomplete plants the exporters would not be able to repay the money borrowed under the old LTFS scheme unless they were extended the same facility for procuring remaining parts of the plants to start production for export purposes.

During the meeting the SBP official informed the TMA that details were being collected from banks about the cases for import of machinery for which LCs were obtained and utilisation of financing under the LTFS before June 30, 2007. The official, however, assured the towel manufacturers that the SBP would consider their cases.

Under the old LTFS exporters were provided financing at 7.5 per cent with a repayment period of seven and half years.

— M.Q.