APBUMA demands ban on yarn export-Texglobe

FAISALABAD (May 26 2010): All Pakistan Bedsheets Upholstery Manu-facturers Association (APBUMA) has strongly demanded ban on export of yarn till arrival of fresh cotton crop to protect the Value Added Textile Sector as well as livelihood of 20 million families across the country.

Addressing the media conference, the leaders of APBUMA and Value Added Textile Sector Arif Ihsan Malik, Shahid Mehmood Butt and Farooq Ahmad Khan disclosed that there is acute shortage of irrigation water in the cotton sowing belt and farmers have showed their apprehensions that the cotton crop target for 2010-11 may not be achieved.

They pointed out that the latest textile committee constituted by the government comprises of the spinners lobby. They rejected the committee expressing concerns that two of the three members of the committee are the stakeholders and they will look after their own interests.

They demanded that the government should invite a roundtable conference of all stakeholders including farmers to decide the new textile strategy. APBUMA leaders alleged that the powerful spinners, sitting in the assembly, have finally manipulated the situation and succeeded in placing their people in decision making to safeguard their own interests.

They mentioned that unbridled export of cotton and yarn during the last one year had played havoc with the national economy, retarded industrialisation process and discouraged fresh investment. They said that cotton and yarn are the basic and most essential raw material for the value-added textile sector constituting 50 percent of total input.

Furthermore, chain of industrial sectors like sizing, power loom, hosiery, bleaching and dyeing, processing, printing Industry, bedsheets and upholstery manufacturing units are dependent on the availability of cotton and yarn. Over the last one year not only the prices of cotton and yarn have increased but also the commodities are short in the domestic market, as the spinners have hoarded huge quantities for export purpose, they added.

They said that the export of raw material to Pakistan's rival countries was strengthening their industrial and export sector while the home industry was being ruined for earning few dollars. They said that with the export of one kg of cotton yarn, only two dollars were earned but with the same quantity of cotton yarn, value-added sector earns ten dollars through export of finished goods. It is, therefore, unjust to ruin the home industry and render millions of workers jobless by exporting the basic and essential raw material.