Curbs on imports along with skyrocketing energy prices have devastated Pakistan’s textile sector.

The textile sector is the country’s main export industry. Some 150 spinning and weaving textile mills have been forced to close down their business in the last five months due to the staggering cost of doing business. This has resulted in the unemployment of at least two million people.

The production cost of the industry has soared by 100 per cent. Due to gas unavailability to industries along with the ban on letters of credit for imports, the textile industry faces a shortage of raw materials. Large-scale manufacturing (LSM) registered a decline of 7.75 percent year on year in October 2022, with the textile, machinery and equipment, and automobile sectors shrinking. Compared to August 2022, the LSM posted an annual increase of 0.1 percent in September 2022. That represented a significant improvement over July 2022, when the LSM dropped by 1.4 percent annually.LSM dipped by 3.62per cent in October 2022 over the preceding month.Moreover, in the July to October period, LSM shrank 2.89per cent compared to the first four months of the previous fiscal year.In the previous fiscal year, large-scale manufacturing grew 11.7per cent year on year.