All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) rejected the recommendation of Pakistan government’s Senate Standing Committee on National Food Security and Research to impose Regulatory Duty on import of Cotton from India through Wagha Border. Chairman APTMA, Tariq Saud said that the recommendation of Senate Committee on National Food Security and Research is based on the false data provided to them which has no basis. He said that the Ginners have not more than 100,000 bales of cotton which they will trade off before the arrival of new crop. Furthermore, the stock available with the ginners and TCP are of very low quality which can only be used in the Open End Processing or producing Lower Count of Yarn.

Tariq Saud further said that the Federal Minister for Finance, Ishaq Dar in his Budget Speech has accepted that due to the failure of cotton crop by about 35 per cent this year the growth rate has declined by about 0.5 per cent. The failure of local cotton crop by about 35 per cent has placed extra burden on the industry to import more than 5 million bales of cotton to meet the consumption requirement of the spinning industry, he added.

He said that this decline in production of cotton in the country has not only effected the operations of basic textile industry, which is already suffering due to high cost of doing business and shortage of energy in the country but also resulted in surge in import of cotton yarn and Fabrics.