Pakistan Textile Exporters Association has expressed grave concern over 354.5 million dollars decline in national exports and decline of 800 million dollars in textile exports in the last four months. This was expressed by Rana Arif Tauseef, Chairman Pakistan Textile Exporters Association addressing a hurriedly called press conference from the platform of All Punjab Textile Associations Council here Sunday. Addressing the press conference, Rana Arif said slow poisoning of national economy is being precipitated due to the non serious attitude of the government, as overall exports of the country are heading towards total collapse after visible decline in textile exports. He said textile was once mainstay of the national economy which was experiencing continuous decline particularly during last four months. He mentioned the energy crisis and said summers have started, but still gas is only available two days in a week. Similarly, electricity tariff has been increased up to 40 per cent, but still the menace of load shedding is plaguing the industrial sectors. He further said textile exporters were pinpointing the root causes of industrial decline with repeated requests for necessary remedial steps, but government remained mum and no proper strategy was carved out to save textile sector from crisis. He said 40 per cent industry has been closed while the remaining was running with 80 per cent capacity. During the last four months, decline of 800 million dollar in textile exports have been recorded and now its fall out impact has been hitting the overall exports which may lead the country towards economic bankruptcy. He also quoted statistics of last five years and said during the month of January, a record decline of 354.5 million dollars has been registered which is alarming for the economic managers of the country. He warned this situation would spur inflation and unending vicious circle of getting loan to pay the loan from IMF with unbearable conditionalities. He said this situation would add unbearable burden on the economy and make life of common man miserable. Government has no finances to meet its expenditure and it was in this respect that it was forced to present national federal budget in the month of May, instead of June. Responding to another question, Rana Arif said textile exporters had been forewarning the government about the fast looming crisis, but no steps have so far been taken to ratify the situation. Government failed to understand the gravity of the situation, despite our protestation, strikes and sit-ins and now they are highly disappointed with the government’s attitude. He further said various tax collecting agencies and departments are out to harass the industrialists in their bid to extort maximum money from them. Textile council in consultation with its member association was busy to finalise a new strategy to nail down these departments and this strategy would be announced very soon, he added. He also appreciated the government decision of giving the status of the most favourite nation status to India, but said that before giving this status, Pakistani government should provide equal opportunities to domestic industrialist so that they could compete with them on equal footings. He hoped that government would pay serious attention to save forex earning sector before it is too late.
