The textile industry of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Wednesday locked out their mills to suspend production and took out a protest demonstration against the anti-business policies of the government.
The textile sector is the largest employer of the province with 45,000 to 50,000 labour force. Addressing the demonstrators, Chairman All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Zone, Afan Aziz said that the industry observed a black-day on the call of central leadership. He said the textile sector was the largest industrial sector of the country and the largest export earner. He said the textile industry was on countrywide strike and closed down their mills for one day.
This strike was due to anti-industry government policies which resulted in complete erosion of viability of textile business. While quoting reasons, Aziz said, as a consequence of repeated measures by the current government, Pakistan now had the highest cost of utility, gas and electricity, in the region coupled with added taxes and duties which had made the industry unviable in Pakistan.
Moreover, the Indian government has continuously been supporting its textile industry whose products, due to lack of adequate protection to industry, are flooding Pakistani markets. India for instance imposes 28 percent duty on Pakistani yarn while Pakistan imposes 5 percent duty on Indian Yarn. It is indeed a question mark on the government intention as to why even this disparity is not being addressed which can be done by the stroke of pen.
More than 35 textile mills have already shut operations, while over 50 mills/units have unfortunately closed one shift and are restricting themselves to only two shifts of operation.
Due to the levy of GIDC and increase in gas tariffs, the cost has reached $6.7 per million British thermal unit (mmbtu) compared to $4.2 mmbtu in India, $3.1 mmbtu in Bangladesh and $4.2 mmbtu in Vietnam, he said, while building his case on the rising cost of production.
The KP APTMA chief also said that electricity tariffs in Pakistan were the highest in the region. For instance, average electricity prices among the regional countries were in the range of 6 to 9 cents which is 14.5 cents in Pakistan. He said the decision of government of Pakistan had no precedent in any country of the world as they were discriminatory against their own industry. This must stop as the textile industry is a national asset.