The committee comprising Adviser to Prime Minister on Finance Dr
Hafeez Sheikh, Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar and State Minister for
Finance and Economic Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar is said to have been
formed after the premier’s meeting with a delegation of spinners”.The
value-added industry has, nevertheless, rejected the composition of the
committee, saying at least one of its members had financial business
interests in the spinning industry ..”This new committee has
apparently been formed to reverse the textile ministry’s decision to
restrict exports of cotton yarn through imposition of regulatory duty
and ensure its availability at reasonable prices in the domestic
market,” a prominent leader of the knitwear industry, Shahzad Azam
Khan, told dawn on Sunday night ..The duty on yarn export was
imposed on May 13 on the recommendation of the textile ministry to
control the commodity’s soaring domestic prices on the back of its
rising global cotton price. The domestic yarn prices are fluctuating
between Rs105 and Rs110 per pound since the imposition of the duty,
down from Rs120 and Rs125 per pound ..Since then yarn producers
have called two-day closure of their factories every week in order to
curtail their ‘surplus’ production ..They say the industry was producing 60,000 tons of surplus yarn every month, which needed to be exported ..They
also claim that their export shipments are stuck at the Karachi port
since imposition of the export duty and they ‘have not been able to
send even a single pound of yarn’ ..Meanwhile, the state-owned APP
news agency quoted the chairman of the All Pakistan Textile Mills
Association as saying that the association had called off its strike
after a meeting with the premier ..Talking to media personnel,
APTMA Chairman Ejaz Gohar announced that the strike had been called
off. The government should help resolve all the problems faced by the
industry as soon as possible, the agency quoted him as saying ..He said the APTMA was never in favour of strikes but it had to register its protest due to unavoidable circumstances .
Date:6/3/2010
Source:The International News