This early opening of its textile mills gave Pakistan an edge over competitors in textile exports, says the Eurasian Times. As Shahid Sattar, Secretary-General, All Pakistan Textile Mills Association, reveals, the country bagged all orders diverted from China, India and Bangladesh. As per a Bloomberg report, companies like Guess Inc, Hugo Boss AG, Target Corp and Hanesbrands moved to Pakistan when other Southasian nations went into lockdown.

External factors like the US-China tensions and ongoing supply disruptions induced by the COVID-19 pandemic in India and Bangladesh helped orders from the West to almost double since July, said Khurram Mukhtar, a textile exporter in Pakistan. Cost and tariff advantages over Chinese competitors in European and American markets and supply chain disruptions in India and Bangladesh helped Pakistan emerge as textile leader on a global scale.

The approach also prevented economic hardship that came after the lockdown. In contrast, India’s total lockdown trapped workers in the big cities that was followed by massive migration. Experts have argued that while the movement of labor from cities to villages was low in Pakistan, the virus that came to cities through international travelers, stayed in the cities only.