Utility shortage hampering Textile City project

Federal Minister for Textile and Industry Makhdoom Shahabuddin said that the land of Textile City is akin to a hot cake for investor, but shortage of water, gas and electricity has broken the trust, he added. He was addressing the meeting of National Assembly Standing Committee on Textile Industry (NASCTI) at PHMA, here on Wednesday. He said that textile sector is facing a very difficult time, as we all know that we have shortage of power and gas and these two utilities are very important for our industry. Makdoom Shahabudding added that Japanese Ambassador and Chinese companies visited Karachi and showed their interest in Textile City.
Textile Minister also said that the textile sector is the backbone of our economy, and the sector provided $14 billion to the exchequer, and hence we have to resolve the issues of the industry urgently or else we won’t be able to achieve our export targets he added. Chairman of National Assembly Standing committee on Textile Industry, Haji Mohammad Akram Ansari said that we have to take the Thar Coal project as our priority, and the government should release the fund for the project, if we resolve the issue of power then nobody can beat us as we will have immense potential to grow our economy.
Chairman Sindh Board of Investment (SBI) and Advisor to Chief Minister Sindh, Zubair Motiwala told that Bangladesh is providing the gas to the industry, 40 per cent cheaper than our country, that’s why they have 33 per cent more business than Pakistan.
Zubair Motiwala added that the industry cannot run without gas and electricity, he demanded tha government should provide the gas to the industry, as they are trying to convince the foreigner investors to the Textile City and other projects and all these efforts are useless if we do not have a solution of these important things. He said that if the situation remains the same, we cannot achieve the export targets, and this year we have already lost the investors’ trust. Former Chairman PHMA, Javed Bilwani voiced the opinion that it is very difficult to survive in this country; there is a lack of gas, electricity and water, in the last four years government increased the 54 per cent tariff of electricity and 62 per cent in gas tariff, he concluded.