ISLAMABAD, July 18: The spinning sector of textile industry has shown an impressive growth during the fiscal 2001-02.
This was observed in a meeting with All Pakistan Textile Mills Association chaired by Commerce Minister Abdul Razak Dawood. The meeting was also attended by Khair Mohammad Junejo, Minister for Food and Agriculture, the secretary of industries & production, the secretary of commerce, the secretary of food & agriculture and the EPB chairman.
The meeting noted that the performance of the textile industry during the last fiscal generally was in line with the growth as visualized in Textile Vision 2005.
The commerce minister stated the textile industry had started moving in the right direction. Though the international market was sluggish during the financial year 2001-02, the exports of textile manufactures had increased from $5.75 billion in 2000-01 to $5.8 billion in 2001-02.
The encouraging factor was the shift to the export of value added items. The minister told the participants that share of value added products in total textile exports was 57.13 per cent in the fiscal 2001-02 as compared to 54 per cent in 2000-01. The industry had started making investments and moving more and more into value added textile products for exports.
The secretary of industries and production said that an investment of Rs40.353 billion had been made by the textile industry in the last one-and-a-half year under the Textile Vision annualized programme being monitored by the State Bank. An investment of Rs23.027 billion in textile spinning, Rs5.266 billion in weaving, Rs4.411 billion in polyester fibre and Rs3.367 billion in processing and Rs4.3 billion in knitting and garment sectors have been made for induction of modern machinery.
The spinning sector witnessed boom in the last three years and the industry re-invested its profit for new equipment. Beside revival of 150,000 closed spindles, more than 400,000 spindles had also been added to the capacity during last three years. This has impacted for increased demand of raw cotton and polyester staple fibres.
The Aptma chairman said that consumption of raw cotton was expected to increase by about 8-10 per cent during the financial year 2002-03.
Both the commerce and food ministers noted it a positive signal for the growers/farmers to respond to the increased demand from the local textile industry and emphasized that the farmers should increase the area under cultivation as well as yield per acre to maximize their earnings.
The meeting expressed satisfaction on the results of the government efforts to control cotton contamination, which has been reduced from 26 gms to 6 gms per bale. This has helped in building the image of Pakistan globally. The programme of contamination-free cotton was extended to districts of Bahawalpur, Rahimyar Khan, Gotki, Sanghar and the entire virgin lands of Balochistan and Dera Ismail Khan.
It was noted that the production of zero per cent contamination cotton was not possible and the farmers were not compensated for their efforts. It was, therefore, decided that instead of notional slab of Rs200 for zero contamination cotton, the following three slabs should be practised to motivate the farmers and grinners to improve quality of cotton:
Level of Premium
Contamination per maund
(i) 2.0 grams per bales Rs 100
(ii) 2.5 grams per bales Rs 75
(iii) 3.0 grams per bales Rs 50