In budget 2021-22, proposals, Pakistan Businesses Forum (PBF) urged the government to set up five mega textile parks to make the industry globally competitive.

Sahibzada Usman Zulfiqar, President, PBF said, in the last year finance bill, textile industry had been completely ignored and deprived of relief. Pakistan has a continuing balance of payments crisis and is being financed by local and international borrowing. More debt piling or borrowing is not a feasible solution; therefore, this challenge can be overcome only by increasing exports, he stressed.

The government through Finance Act 2013 had raised the general rate of minimum turnover tax under Section 113 of the Income Tax Ordinance 2001 to 1 per cent from 0.5 per cent, which was further increased to 1.5 per cent through Finance Act, 2019. PBF proposed for the abolition of the minimum turnover tax for the coming year. It also urged for the extension of taxation regime to indirect exporters.

Zulfiqar also urged the government to make it compulsory for the large spinning units having more than 30,000 spindles to grow their own cotton to manufacture cotton yarn and extend full support to them because country textile exports could not be enhanced without increasing the area under cotton cultivation and yield.

He also requested the government to announce the availability of credit and soft loaning facilities at the rate not more than 4 to 5 percent of policy rate in finance bill. In this regard, SBP should direct the commercial banks to disburse 20 per centloans to export oriented industries and approval of the loan amount could be directly credited to vendor or opening for any letter of credit (L/C) to purchase machinery etc; so that loaning facility may utilize correctly, he added.