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Staff Reporter
Islamabad,A Spokesman of the textile Industry on Tuesday said that the key Pakistani exports, namely textiles, have started showing positive signs.
In a statement issued here, the Spokesman said that during the first three months of current financial year textile exports have amounted to a monthly average of US$ 823 million compared to a monthly average of $770 million recorded during the first six months of 2009.
The spokesman of Ministry of Textile Industry said that besides the increase in raw cotton and yarn, some value added sectors, most notably knitwear and hosiery, have also shown this rising trend.
He added that in the months ahead, this trend is most likely to strengthen because businessmen in all sub sectors are reporting increasing orders and are expecting full capacity utilization.
The rising orders of textiles machinery are also indicative to the positive sentiment prevailing in the sector.
The spokesman further explained that textiles policy has contributed significantly in spurring the current momentum.
The key initiatives adopted under the policy have already been put in place. These include mark support of 2.5% in export refinancing, 5% support in all long term loans of the industry, draw back of local taxes and levies, reimbursement of regulatory costs of EOBI and social security for women and handicapped employees of textiles sector and duty free imports of textiles machinery.
There is a very close collaboration between the Ministry and textile sector stakeholders. In all matters connected with the textiles sector, be they related to cotton or availability of gas and electricity. Ministry of textiles, he said is playing the leading role in resolving all issues that are affecting the industry spokesman added.
Moreover, he said that it should be noted that textiles exports in the first three months of this fiscal year have shown a decline of about 14% compared with the same period last year.
However, this was due entirely to a base effect whereby the exports during the same period last year were affected positively due to a significant devaluation of rupee and the world economic crisis had not hit until October 2008. Due to the slump in the world demand, textiles exports in the subsequent 9 months of the last fiscal year were badly affected bringing down the average monthly exports of $900 million to $770 million.
The current year is witnessing a welcome and much awaited, he concluded.
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