PAKISTAN: 341.6 million USD Pakistan fabric export at stake

At a time when the decision regarding the EU market access concession for the Pakistani products has been deferred till March/April the Turkish government action of increasing custom duty to facilitate its local fabric manufacturers will add to woes of Pakistan textile exports, sources said.

They were of the view that Pakistan currently exports $341.6 million worth of textile to Turkey out of which $237.7 million is cotton cloth and $33.6 million yarn. There were chances that the finished fabric exports to Turkey could increase substantially after the change in country of origin rules in GSP Plus, but this decision would harm the export enormously, textile manufacturers said.

Textile exporters pointed out that market access is the main issue impeding Pakistan’s textile export. They elaborating that spinners produce excess cotton yarn than local demand worth $2 billion a year that has to be exported. They said the weaving sector of the country cannot use this yarn to produce fabric as the local demand is limited while exports are not possible due to lack of market access. They said from the yarn weavers produce grey fabric worth $2 billion that has to be exported because there is no demand for this fabric. They said value-added apparel sector is subjected to 23 per cent import duties in these markets compared with zero rated access to the 80 privileged economies.

They said the importance of market access could be judged by the fact that the textile exports of Bangladesh were $5 billion in 2005 compared with Pakistan’s textile exports of $10 billion. In the last fiscal the textile exports from Bangladesh increased to above $15 billion while Pakistan’s exports inched up to $10.6 billion only, they added.