The textile industry is looking for support to take full advantage of GSP Plus

LAHORE:

The leadership of the Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturers Association (PHMA) has pledged that the value-added textile industry will work closely with the new government in a bid to boost exports and revive growth momentum.

In a statement, Chairman PHMA Zonal Farrukh Iqbal requested the government to extend its support to the value-added garment sector so that it can realize its potential to reap benefits from the GSP Plus preferential trade facility and provide massive employment among the unemployed population.

“Exports to EU countries have started to decline, which is a serious concern,” he said.

Iqbal welcomed the government’s recent move to release verified pending tax refunds from exporters till February 2024. “This is a welcome move by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and we appreciate him along with his team as this will surely boost the confidence of the exporters and encourage the export sector’.

He hoped that the same spirit would be followed for the release of the rest of the deferred sales tax refunds and under schemes such as tax duty refund and local tax and levy refund, Technology Upgradation Fund and surcharge subsidy to increase exports.

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As energy prices had escalated to record highs, the PHMA leader pointed out that frequent hikes in gas and electricity tariffs would further fuel inflation amid high profit making Pakistan’s value-added textiles uncompetitive in international market.

He called the increase in energy tariffs an irrational move that will undermine the efforts of exporters.

He asked the new government to ensure a level playing field by offering regionally competitive energy tariffs and continuing the DLTL scheme as committed in the new five-year textile and apparel policy.

Iqbal was of the view that energy rates for industries should be at par or lower than the tariffs prevailing in competing regional countries.

Pakistan needs a level playing field with regional competitors through the continuation of past concessional energy tariffs for the export sector.

Highlighting the decline in exports to the EU, the PHMA zone chairman said that Pakistan’s exports to European countries declined by 7.54% year-on-year in the first seven months of the current financial year, mainly due to reduced demand for Pakistani products in Western countries. , southern and northern Europe.

Export earnings from these countries fell to $4.866 billion in July-January 2014, against shipments of $5.263 billion recorded in the corresponding period of the previous year, according to data compiled by the State Bank of Pakistan.

This decline in export earnings indicates the challenges faced by Pakistani exporters in these uncertain economic times, despite having preferential trade access to the 27-member EU bloc.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 17^u2024.

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