The textile industry in Pakistan has urged the government to appoint a textile minister without delay and has rejected the government decision to merge the textile division into the commerce division. Textile has become an important sector for Pakistan especially after the grant of the GSP Plus status by the EU countries.

Garment manufacturers say major decisions regarding textile policy implementation and the budget preparation exercise for 2015-16 are being delayed. Uncertainty is affecting the whole textile sector and that the experiment of the textile and commerce ministry merger has failed twice in the past. Since regional competitors like India, China and Bangladesh have separate ministries of textile, Pakistan too must follow suit.

Pakistan’s exporters are confident that if the country starts converting 50 per cent of its total cotton of around 14 million bales into value-added products they can earn $42 billion in exports. In case of 100 per cent consumption of raw material, the country can earn $84 billion.

Competitor Bangladesh enjoys duty-free import of every raw material. As a result, Bangladesh value-added textile exports have surged to $26 billion without producing a single bale of cotton while Pakistan has never crossed the garment export figure of $4.5 billion.