Pakistan’s textile and garment industry will stress on value addition and promoting and facilitating exports in order to enhance the country’s overall shipments. Incentives will be given to the garment industry to help it enhance value addition capacity.

Pakistan’s overall exports have gone down from around $24 billion to around $20 billion a year over the past few years of which textile exports constituted more than half of the total shipments. The fast widening trade deficit is a big challenge.

Issues like electricity tariffs, sales tax, high cost of doing business, including the burden of surcharges in electricity bills and levy of taxes on the export-oriented industry will be taken up. The priority is to facilitate textile sector and help it gain competitiveness to enhance the country’s exports.

Existing power looms will be upgraded to switch to technical textiles in addition to producing traditional cheap grey cloth. The old, obsolete and depreciated machinery will be replaced to increase the profitability of power loom owners. There will be comprehensive value addition in the shape of fashion garments. This is necessary to earn optimum profit from the textile chain. It is the last stage of cotton that brings the maximum profit.