Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Wednesday issued directives for immediate restoration of gas supply to textile units and ordered officials concerned to ensure gas supply to the units during the winter season for optimum production.
Chairing a review meeting regarding supply of gas to textile export units, the minister said that the smooth provision of gas would help the textile exporters keep their production units fully functional during the remaining months of winter.
He said textile exports were a major source of foreign exchange earnings for the country and the government would facilitate the industry in every possible manner.
The meeting was attended by the representatives of textile industry, senior officials of the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources and Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL).
Earlier, Dar also held a meeting with traders and representatives of the business community at the FBR.
The meeting held late on Tuesday reviewed the progress of talks between the traders and the FBR held during the past few months with the aim to facilitate the business community.
Both sides expressed satisfaction on their concerted efforts for devising a package for traders/business community, including both filers and non-filers. The meeting agreed that after completing necessary modalities, the package would be announced in the first week of January 2016.
The traders and businessmen paid gratitude to the finance minister and the FBR team for continued engagement with the business community with the aim of addressing their problems. They said that the decisions by the two sides would be received positively.
