Pakistan’s readymade garment manufacturers and exporters have called for an ease of doing business, lowered cost of production, solution of the liquidity crunch through early refunds payments, equal energy tariff and relaxed import policy for industrial raw materials. But the core issue is the high cost of doing business. The liquidity crunch is a major stumbling block in the way of improving exports.

Since the export-oriented garment sector is the highest value-added link in the entire textile value chain, exporters want a liberal import policy for raw materials for re-export like duty-free import of fabrics and accessories which are not being manufactured in Pakistan.

The unprecedented surge in cotton yarn rates has hit the export-oriented value-added textile sector hard. Exporters have appealed for duty-free yarn imports to encourage value addition, reduce the cost of doing business and bridge the gap between production and consumption. Other proposals are: special lending rates should be given to the garment sector; all existing loans should be on zero markup with allocation on total export performance.

Exporters have also urged that the sales tax zero-rating facility to five export-oriented sectors should be continued in the upcoming budget and that the zero rating should be extended to packing material as well.